


Melanie King and the Haunted Librarian

by EvaBelmort



Series: The Magnus Library [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Also all the cameos by minor characters, Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - No Powers, But maybe ghosts?, F/F, M/M, Warnings for: stalking, canon-typical Martin pining, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 05:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20204623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvaBelmort/pseuds/EvaBelmort
Summary: In which Melanie gets a new job, accidentally gets tangled up in a mystery with her best mate Georgie’s weird ex-boyfriend, and possibly maybe falls in love. Not with Jon, to be clear. He’s a disaster.





	1. Prologue: Wednesday 15th March, 2017

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Rusty Quill Big Bang 2019, with art from the amazing Kels, which you can find linked in Part Two or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/antiquecipher/status/1160665798626516993) or [tumblr](https://antiquecipher.tumblr.com/post/186943921906/my-rustyquill-big-bang-pilesofnonsense-art). 
> 
> Thanks again for being my Big Bang buddy! I definitely would not have finished this monster without your encouragement <3

The letter was probably the fanciest piece of mail Melanie had ever received in her life, and that included some extremely overpriced wedding invitations. 

There was a crest at the top, with an owl, but if you squinted it kind of looked like a pile of eyes; it was a bit creepy, really. The text under it wasn’t handwritten, but it was in one of those stupid cursive fonts. It took Melanie a moment to process it. 

** _Dear Ms. King, _ **

** _I am delighted to inform you that your application for the position of Circulation Librarian at the Magnus Library has been successful. As you indicated that you would be available to start immediately, we would appreciate your presence at 8:30am on Monday, March 20th, to finalise your paperwork. If this will not suit, or you have any further questions, please contact me as soon as possible._ **

** _Yours,_ **

** _Elias Bouchard_ **

** _Manager_ **

** _The Magnus Library_ **

Melanie stared at it for a while in disbelief. If she was entirely honest, she hadn’t even expected to get as far as an interview at this place. The ink had barely dried on her diploma, she had no industry experience besides a part-time job as a shelver when she’d been at uni the first time, and she’d been incredibly nervous at the interview. 

She remembered Elias Bouchard: polite, kind of intense, and with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He had known about Ghost Hunt UK, but she didn’t think he was a fan, and either way that was a terrible reason to hire someone. 

There was something else nagging at her, too. Abruptly it came to her, and she dived for her phone, texting Georgie. 

_ Hey, which library does that weirdo ex of yours work at? _

*eyeroll*  
_ He usually answers to Jon  
_ _ Why? _

_ Does it matter? _

_ It does if you two are having another stupid argument   
and you’re planning to hassle him at work _

_ Oh come on, as if I’d waste my own   
_ _ personal time on that prat _

_ I’ve seen the lengths you’ll go to when you’re   
_ _ pissed off at somebody _

_ ...maybe. Look, I just wanted to know   
_ _ if it was the Magnus Library _

_ … _

_ Because if it is I just got a job there :) _

_ Oh god. Please don’t kill each other? _


	2. Part One: In Which Melanie King comes to the Magnus Library

**Monday 20th March**

The Magnus Library was easily one of the most intimidating buildings Melanie had ever seen, and she’d been to seven of the ten supposedly most haunted places in Britain. 

According to the website, Jonah Magnus had turned his manor into a library for the edification of the public, out of the kindness of his heart. Which was pretty nice, actually, but it hadn’t really prepared her for the sweeping driveway that led to the neatly marked car park. She’d gotten the bus, and had been a little surprised to find that there was a route which actually went directly to the library. 

She was relieved that somebody else got out with her even though the library wasn't open yet, and when they walked off to a small side door rather than approaching the big glass doors at the front, she followed them.

“Good morning,” Melanie called as she approached. “My name’s Melanie King, I’m supposed to be starting today? Not sure if you’re allowed to just let me in, or if I need to call-“

“Oh, you’re the new librarian, right?” The man was a full head taller than Melanie with broad shoulders but a faintly apologetic hunch to them. He smiled at her from under a mop of fair hair, and said, “Um, nice to meet you. I’m Martin Blackwood, I do the home library service.” Melanie shook his hand, and then said, “So, can I just-“

He flushed slightly. “Oh, sorry, of course. Come on in, I’ll make sure you get to Elias.” He opened the door with a swipe card, and made sure it shut behind them, then turned to Melanie. “Right! So, when are you supposed to start?”

“8:30.” Melanie glanced at her watch. “I’m a bit early, but I wasn’t sure about the traffic, so I thought, err on the side of caution.”

“No, that’s a good call.” Martin nodded approvingly. “Elias likes punctuality. I’ll show you where his office is, and it’s right near the tearoom, so you can wait there, maybe have a cuppa, and you won’t be in anyone’s way or anything.”

“That’s brilliant, thank you.” Melanie smiled at him gratefully as they headed down a hallway.

“Oh, no problem. I know the place is a bit intimidating if you’re not used to it, I’ve been here a few years now and I still don’t like being in the office after dark. Also, it’s your first day. So if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask, okay?”

“That’s… that’s really kind of you.” Melanie glanced around. The ceilings were very high, which contrived to make the hallways seem narrower than they were, and all the windows were of thick old-fashioned glass, which warped the light slightly and made all the shadows shift strangely. “And yeah, this place is really working the ‘haunted mansion’ vibe, huh?” 

“It’s…. definitely something, isn’t it? We have indoor plumbing and electricity, at least, but I could tell you a few stories… Anway, this is our tea room here.” His voice brightened noticeably. “Oh, good morning Jon!”

Jonathan Sims, Georgie’s weirdo ex, had stopped in the open doorway. He was carrying a steaming mug, and seemed… sort of exhausted, actually. Melanie hadn’t seen him in about a year, but he was definitely thinner, and with the grey streaking his hair he actually looked the decade older than her that he pretended to be. That was just unfair, Melanie thought irritably, because if she was that tired she looked like a belligerent raccoon, but with Jon’s olive skin the overall effect was ‘delicate’ rather than ‘haggard’.

Jon appeared thoroughly confused for a minute as he stared at Melanie. Then his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Martin murmured to Melanie, “Jonathan Sims, Local Studies librarian. He’s a bit hopeless until he gets some caffeine into him.” He raised his voice back to normal volume to say. “Hey, Jon, this is Melanie King, she’s starting today.”

“Is she.” Jon’s tone was flat. Martin faltered, his eyes widening.

“Yes, I am,” Melanie informed him. “Looking forward to working with you.”

He stared at her for a moment, as if inspecting the sentence for traps. Then shook his head, and actually sounded normal as he said, “Well. Congratulations, I suppose? Is… this your first job, then?”

Melanie raised an eyebrow.

Jon rolled his eyes. “First _library_ job.”

She shrugged. “Pretty much.” Then tilted her chin up. “What of it?”

He waved his free hand, startled. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean- I remember Georgie saying you’d graduated, and I didn’t think it was that long ago. Well done? Elias was complaining about how many applications he’d gotten, so you must have really impressed him.”

It was Melanie’s turn to stare suspiciously, but the sentiment seemed genuine. “Oh. Thanks, I guess. I’ll… probably see you later.”

“I expect so,” Jon agreed, then wandered off clutching his tea.

Melanie turned to Martin, and found he was staring at her with rapt fascination. “So.” He leaned in. “You and Jon know each other?”

“Uh, yes? We were at the same university. I mean, we aren’t exactly close but we have a mutual friend so we sort of… hear about each other, on and off.”

“But he didn’t know you were getting the job here?” He waved Melanie into the tea room, and pointed out the fridge so she could put her lunch in it.

“No.” 

Martin raised an interrogative eyebrow, still watching her.

Melanie sighed, putting her chicken salad sandwich in the fridge as directed, and setting her bag against the wall. “To be honest, I’d forgotten where he worked until I got the letter last week, but I guess it’s fine.”

Martin’s other eyebrow rose to join the first. “That’s not a very enthusiastic-“

Elias Bouchard walked in, glancing around. “Ah! Good morning, Melanie, I see you found your way inside. Thank you for escorting her, Martin.”

“Oh, morning Elias! And, um, no problem! It was great meeting you Melanie, and, well, I'll see you later.”

“Alright,” Melanie smiled, “and thanks again for walking me in.”

He gave her a cheery wave and headed off. 

Elias ushered her out into the hallway, then opened a door a little further down. “Thank you for joining us today; my office is just in here. Now, we just need to go over some paperwork, and then I’ll give you a bit of a tour and get you settled in. Come in, please.”

Melanie sat in the chair across from Elias’s desk and accepted the sheaf of papers he handed over. Then she hesitated. “Sorry, can I just ask… Why did you choose me?”

Elias raised his eyebrows. “Should we not have?”

Melanie laughed uncertainly. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound… I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity! I was just… surprised, that’s all. I mean, I only finished my course a couple of months ago, and I certainly don’t have any management experience.”

Elias smiled back at her. “Oh, we were very impressed by your previous work in other fields. Running your own production company at such a young age is exactly the sort of entrepreneurial spirit we’d like to encourage in our newer staff. And we’ve found one of the unfortunate things about staff with previous library experience is that they tend to be constrained by what they’ve seen in other workplaces. Since ours is a little different to the standard public library, we were looking for somebody with fresh eyes, who could learn on the job and wasn’t afraid to ask questions.”

Melanie blinked, flattered despite herself. She wasn’t entirely sure how a ghost-hunting YouTube channel (which had fallen apart rather dramatically and left her going back to university to find a new career path) was going to translate to working in a library, but she wasn’t about to argue.

“Alright,” Elias went on, setting a pen on the desk in front of her. “Please do take as long as you need to read through the employment contract, and if there’s anything you have questions about, I’m happy to discuss it.”

Melanie read through it carefully, but there didn’t seem to be anything new. She’d agreed to the hours, standard nine-to-five weekdays except for Wednesday, when she’d be starting later and doing the evening shift. The salary was actually a little better than she’d expected, she got sick days and annual leave, some options for flexible hours and overtime. It all sounded great, and much more reliable than being a self-employed ghost hunter. She nodded to herself, told Elias it looked fine, and signed. 

He smiled at her, running the papers through a scanner in the corner and handing her a copy. Then he pulled out a binder with her name on the front and handed that over as well. “Perfect. Now that the formalities are out of the way, here’s your schedule for this week, as well as copies of our procedure manuals. Those are also available on the staff intranet, but it sometimes helps to have physical copies. I’ll be taking you on a tour of the library now, make sure you know where everything is, and I’ll introduce you to the other staff. You’ve already met Martin, you’ll be spending Friday morning on one of the Home Library delivery runs with him. I’ve decided you should spend some time with all of our sections through the week, getting a feel for how everything works, and then I’ll run through your duties with you on Friday, and we’ll see how you’re going. Does that sound alright?”

Melanie looked at the schedule. It was colour-coded. The first block on Monday: 8:30-12:00 read ‘Orientation with Elias’ and was shaded in a light mauve, as was ‘Progress meeting with Elias’ on Friday, between 2:30 and 4:30.

“Wow,” she said blankly. “Thank you, this seems very organised.”

“Of course,” Elias agreed, getting to his feet. He ushered her out the door, handing her a lanyard with a swipe card on it like Martin had had. “This has already been activated, and it will let you through any door in the building, except for the basement storage areas, which require a physical key. They contain mostly older furniture and some outdoor kit, I believe there’s a gazebo? At any rate, we haven’t bothered updating the locks because we rarely have to go down there. If you do need to, there’s a key cabinet in my office with those, but please notify somebody before you go down there. We had a part-timer get lost once and it was a terrible hassle.”

“Right, sure,” Melanie agreed. “Don’t go into the creepy basement alone.”

“Exactly.” Elias smiled at her. “We’d rather not lose you just yet. Now, I’m not sure how familiar you are with our history here?”

“Only what’s on your website.”

“Not to worry, it mostly isn’t relevant to the day-to-day business of the library. But I think history is important. Our founder, Jonah Magnus, was a gentleman scholar who had strong opinions about the importance of education and access to information. He never married, and rather than leave his home and fortune to some distant relative he converted his house into a public library and set up the Magnus Trust to manage it in perpetuity.”

“It’s a lovely old building, but I’m afraid there have been limits to what modifications we were allowed to make, so the space is not quite as efficient as it could be. Still, it is historically significant and a lot of our patrons think it’s charming, so we make do. So, where we are here is the staff area, which takes up the southern side of the ground floor.” He walked her down the hallway, indicating the different doors as he went. “Those are the stairs to the upper floors, this set is reserved for staff use so you will need your lanyard to get in and out of the doors. There’s another set of stairs and an elevator in the public area, which we’ll get to later. There’s the tea room, which you’ve already seen, the bathroom is clearly marked here, and here is where most of the staff are based.”

‘Here’ turned out to be a large, open room with wide windows, which had been divided up neatly into open-plan cubicles. 

“There are a lot of empty desks at the moment, since most of the staff are busy with one thing or another. So, here on the end is Tim, he’s currently upstairs on the Reference desk, so we’ll see him shortly. He’s in charge of our programs and marketing.”

Elias gestured to the desk beside Tim’s. “This is Sasha’s desk, our systems librarian. She’s on the late shift today so she won’t be starting until midday. You’ll meet her this afternoon, she’s going to familiarise you with all of our computer . That desk there is Martin, who you met on your way in, he does our home library service for elderly and disabled patrons who can’t come to the library themselves. We’ll see him shortly. And over here is Rosie, she’s in charge of resources.” 

A thin, dark-haired woman in a neat pantsuit turned away from her computer and shook Melanie’s hand. “Welcome to the Library,” she said, taking her hand back immediately. “As Elias said, I’m in charge of resources. I liaise with our suppliers and do all of the ordering. If you find a sudden need for some new piece of equipment, come and see me and I’ll look into it.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think Melanie will be needing new equipment any time soon,” Elias said firmly. “Rosie is very busy these days, since we outsource most of our cataloguing and processing now, which allows our staff more freedom to focus on our customer programs. And speaking of those, that desk there, with all of the coloured cardboard, is Basira. She’s our children’s librarian, she’ll be setting up for story time now, so we’ll catch up with her once that’s finished. And the one next to hers is for you. Oh, the mostly-empty one in the corner there is technically Jon, he’s our Local Studies librarian, but he’s quite busy at the moment too, so if you’re looking for him you’ll have better luck checking on the second floor.”

“We call it the attic,” Rosie offered, turning back around. “It’s sort of a joke, but it’s also easier. This floor is downstairs, first floor is upstairs, and the second floor is the attic. Also there’s a basement, but we don’t bother with that much.”

“Yeah, Elias said.” Melanie gave her a nod. “Thanks!”

They stepped back into the hallway, and Elias led her to a door at the end. When they stepped through she found herself in a large room lined with shelves. There was a stack of plastic crates against one wall, where Martin was busy packing books into one of them.

“Here we have the home library service area, and,” Elias gestured at a set of double doors opposite them, beside a window onto what looked like a small parking lot, “this used to be the servants’ entrance. There’s parking out there for staff cars and any deliveries we get, and the home library service van.” 

Martin straightened up, turning towards them “Oh! Um, hello again, Melanie.”

“That’s me. I hope we’re not interrupting?”

“Oh, well. I’m nearly done. Just a few more.” He gestured to one of the empty crates, which was marked with ‘Ivy Meadows Care Home’. Unexpectedly, Melanie had to take a breath and blink hard. Martin’s eyes widened. “Sorry, are you alright?”

Melanie shook her head. “I- Yeah, sorry. My dad was in Ivy Meadows, he passed away a few years back. Just a bit of a surprise. You, uh, you deliver there?”

Martin’s face was soft with sympathy, but he allowed the redirection. “Oh, yes. There are a dozen or so residents who have accounts with us, and the nursing home itself gets some nice coffee table books and a handful of large print for their quiet activity room. They’re a lovely bunch.”

“Right, yeah.” Melanie waved a hand at the piles of books on the table. “So, you do all this yourself?”

“Oh, no! We have several volunteers. Robin and Lynne are upstairs now, choosing some more books. We run deliveries on Tuesdays and Fridays, so today I’m packing the boxes we’ll take out tomorrow.”

Elias, who had just been standing back and watching them interact with apparent fascination, stepped forward. “Melanie will be joining you on your Friday run this week, just to see what it’s like. I’m making sure she has a solid understanding of all the services we offer here.”

“Oh, right! I remember you saying.” Martin turned back to Melanie and said uncertainly, “Um. In case you were wondering, Ivy Meadows is on the Tuesday run, so you won’t be going there.”

“Right. Thanks. Uh-“

“Thank you for your time, Martin,” Elias cut in smoothly. “We’d best let you get back to your work.”

“Oh, of course. I’ll... See you later, Melanie.”

Melanie nodded, and followed Elias back to the hallway. 

“You will get to meet all the volunteers,” Elias told her as he closed the door behind them, “since one of your duties will be looking after them. We have several in the home library service and one in local studies, I’ll give you the list later. But you don’t need to worry about that this week, we’re strictly working on orientation. At any rate, the current crop know what they’re doing and won’t be a problem, but there’s a certain amount of paperwork involved, and if we have any new applications, reviewing them will be your job.” 

Melanie nodded, making a mental note to keep track of that, as they headed off again. 

Elias pointed out a few smaller rooms that were used for meetings, and then led her out of the staff area. The foyer was a wide, high-ceilinged room, one side taken up with checkout machines and a desk with a smiling young woman sitting behind a computer. The front doors were open now, people coming in and out and heading over into the other side of the building. 

Next to the doorway was a cute, brightly-coloured signpost indicating where to find the children’s area, the information desk, bathrooms, and a large section for upstairs that included computers, adult collection, and the Magnus Collection. Perched on top of the signpost was a cartoonish version of the owl she’d seen on the website and the Library’s stationery.

“And here we are in the public section. The ground floor has the children’s collection and activity rooms, and some of our computers. We’ll come back to that after story time is finished.” Melanie eyed the hubbub of excited children and parents milling about in the area and nodded. 

Elias smiled benevolently in the general direction of the crowd. “Attendance is up by fourteen percent this quarter. Over here is the information desk, and this is Naomi, one of our assistants.” The woman sitting at the desk gave her a wave. “The desk down here is mostly for administrative enquiries and to help patrons use the checkouts.” He gestured at the machines set up along the wall. “Any actual information questions are referred upstairs to the main desk.” 

Melanie nodded. When she glanced back, Naomi was pointing some people in the direction of the bathrooms.

Elias started them moving towards the elevator. “As I said, we’ll have a look in the children's section later, so for now we’ll be heading upstairs.” 

He pointed across the foyer, to a wide stairwell which a number of people were entering. “There are the public stairs, if you prefer to use them. I hope you aren’t bothered by small spaces?”

Melanie blinked. “Me? No.”

“Excellent. If you’re moving anything heavy or you need to get a trolley up and down, you really do have to use the elevator. We had an assistant a few years back who was claustrophobic and they decided they would just send the trolley up and take the stairs themselves, which caused no end of hassle. I’m afraid we have only the one elevator, though. We did try to get in a second one but it would have required larger structural changes than we were permitted.”

“Right.” Melanie blinked. “I hope that wasn’t the same assistant who got lost in the basement?”

Elias laughed. “Oh, no. The assistants are all casual staff and we have a fairly high turnover rate. Most of them are students, so we tend to lose them once they graduate or move away.”

Melanie thought of her own shelving job, and nodded. “That makes sense.”

“Yes. And it’s an entry-level job, so we get all sorts of people applying, which is why most of the interesting stories are about assistants. Martin started out as an assistant here, in fact, but we managed to keep him and I think he’s really found his niche now.”

They stepped out of the elevator into another open room. This one was lined with bookshelves and in the centre was a display of books with a cheerful daffodil poster that read ‘Spring into a New Book’.

There was also a large desk that said ‘Reference’ on the front. Sitting behind it was a good-looking man in a collared shirt and jeans, working at a computer. He turned as she and Elias approached, looking interested. “Ah, yes,” Elias said, smiling, “This is Timothy Stoker, in charge of our programs and marketing. He maintains our social media presence as well, and he and Sasha collaborate on our lovely website. Tim, this is Melanie King, our new Circulation Librarian.”

“Hey, nice to meet you!” Tim said, standing and offering her a hand to shake. “And thanks, boss! Although the website is mostly Sasha, I just offer advice on layout.”

“And write most of the actual content,” Elias said, amused. “I’ve seen Sasha’s idea of writing, we would have ended up with an itemised list of our services and a link to the catalogue.”

Tim snorted. “She’s not that bad,” he told Melanie, settling back behind his computer, “she just likes efficiency. I used to work in publishing, so I have a lot of experience talking things up. I think you’re with me for a bit tomorrow?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s on my schedule.”

“Awesome. I’ll give you the proper spiel then, and see if I can’t convince you to attend all our library events.”

Melanie laughed. “Alright, I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Somebody came up to the desk, and Tim gave her a little wave and turned away to see what they wanted, so Elias tipped his head towards one of the doors on the right hand side of the room.

Elias escorted her around the second floor, pointing out the various lending collections. It was a rather odd building, a lot of narrow corridors and small rooms lined with bookshelves. The windows were high and thin, and sound didn’t seem to carry very well; after they’d turned a few corners the sound of Tim’s voice talking to his patron had completely disappeared. There were cozy-looking armchairs in most of the rooms, though, and she wondered if anyone would mind if she came up here during her lunch breaks to read. 

She found herself thinking that it reminded her more of an old second-hand bookstore than most of the public libraries she was familiar with, which tended towards open spaces and avoided clutter. She did notice half a dozen directional signs hanging from the roof, each with that same creepy-cute owl design as the signposts downstairs. “I like the owl logo,” Melanie offered as they stood beside one indicating the teen fiction and audiobook collections. 

“Ah, yes.” Elias frowned at it. “Tim found a designer who put it together for us. It’s a version of the owl from the Magnus family crest. A little twee, perhaps, but the public feedback has been very positive, even from the older patrons. Apparently it adds a friendly touch and makes us seem more approachable. 

Melanie nodded gravely. “I suppose you have to work quite hard at that with such an imposing old building.”

“Indeed.” Elias gave her a sideways look as they turned a corner and found themselves back at the desk, crossing the central room to the other side of the building. “Computers are through here. The word processing ones are free to use, internet use is free for the first hour, and after that patrons can add money to their library cards to keep using it. We find it works out fairly well. There’s a booking system, patrons can either do it themselves through our website or see staff at the desk. Over here we have a number of small study rooms. These are also free to use but require booking. And here is the reference collection, and that’s it for upstairs.”

When they got back to the central room, Tim was standing in front of the desk, now with a handful of books. He smiled at Melanie. “So, what do you think?”

“It’s an interesting place. And I’m not sure if it’s bigger than it looks or smaller, there’s a lot of little rooms.”

“Yeah, it’s a bit of a warren, isn’t it? Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it pretty quickly.” Tim grinned at her. “And we haven’t lost a patron in weeks!”

Melanie opened her mouth, then closed it again, glancing at Elias. He sighed. “He’s joking. It’s been three and a half months.”

Melanie looked at him. _He_ seemed entirely serious. “O-oh. Well, that’s good. Right?”

“The new signs have gotten a very positive response.” Elias either had an excellent poker face and was messing with her, or… well, she hoped he was messing with her. 

She kept her face just as bland as she answered, “I see. Well, I suppose as long as you find them again, eventually.”

The corner of his mouth turned up slightly. “We've never lost a patron _permanently_, I assure you. Sometimes people just get turned around. And then distracted by books.”

“Oh. _Ohhh_. Okay.” She relaxed, smiling, thinking of those comfy armchairs. “Well, it _is_ an interesting place.”

Tim snickered. “And we always have such interesting patrons. Don’t worry, while we do occasionally have to shoo people out after closing, it’s generally parents or partners asking after somebody who’s settled down in a corner somewhere and lost track of time.” 

Elias sighed. “Our lives would be so much easier if we didn’t have to let the public in.”

Tim snorted. “Sure, boss. Anyway, I need to put these away, so I’ll see you later.”

He disappeared into the shelves as they headed back to the elevator.

When they emerged this time Elias said, “And lastly, we have the top floor. It’s much quieter up here, local studies is rarely busy unless there’s an event on, but the people who do come in tend to have more complicated requests. Now, we are required under the terms of Jonah Magnus’s will to keep his collection in good condition and available to the public, so this is technically the most important section of the library.”

They stepped out into a smaller foyer than the previous two, with a lower ceiling. The room was split in half by a glass wall, though both sides were lined with shelves and filing cabinets.

There was a large desk in the open part, which was just labelled ‘Enquiries’; it had two computer terminals and a large stack of papers on it, along with a little shop-style bell with a sign that said ‘Ring for service if unattended’.

After a moment, Melanie turned her attention to the glass barrier. It was etched with the actual Magnus crest, no cute cartoon owls here, and in pride of place on the wall behind it was a large portrait. She stepped closer to look at it. 

The subject was a middle-aged white man in a black suit, pale cravat knotted tidily at his throat, sitting at a writing desk. The wall behind him was lined with books, though she couldn’t read the titles. He had dark hair and sharp grey eyes, and the curl of his mouth looked amused, like he knew something the viewer didn’t but wasn’t inclined to share. 

“Ah, and that’s Jonah himself.” Elias said, apparently pleased by her interest. “A great scholar, and a man with strong beliefs about the importance of education.”

Melanie privately thought that he looked like a smug git, but all she said to Elias was, “Well, he was definitely into books.”

“Oh, yes. That’s his collection through there. We keep it locked because the books are quite valuable, but the public can access them upon request. I’m sure Jon will show you tomorrow when you’re spending the morning with him.”

“Speaking of Jon,” Melanie said slowly. “Didn’t you say he was up here?”

Elias chuckled, and walked over to the desk. 

He tapped the bell, and it dinged softly. After a moment, a door Melanie hadn't noticed opened between two of the shelves, and Jon stepped out, looking flustered. “I do beg your pardon,” he began, and then blinked. “Oh, Elias. And Melanie? Oh, your tour, of course.”

“Hi Jon,” Melanie said, managing not to roll her eyes. “Busy morning?”

He eyed her sharply. “I haven’t had any patrons in yet, but there’s a great deal to do.”

Elias made a small, amused sound, and they both turned to look at him. “Oh, don’t mind me. I’m simply wondering if you managed to meet everybody on staff on your way in this morning, Melanie.”

“Oh! No, only Martin and Jon, but I’ve known Jon for years.”

“We met at university,” Jon agreed.

“Well, how serendipitous for you both.” Elias glanced between them for a moment, eyes sharp, then glanced at his watch. “Ah, we do need to be getting on. I think we'll have a quick look at the children’s section and then we should be in time to catch Basira before she goes to lunch.”

“Oh, of course,” Jon said at the same time as Melanie’s “Right, sure,” and they both broke off. Melanie did roll her eyes this time. “Okay, see you tomorrow, Jon.”

She went back to the elevator, but rather than follow her, Elias stepped closer to Jon, leaning in to murmur something to him. Jon nodded, giving him a tired smile, and Elias patted him on the shoulder before joining Melanie at the elevator. 

When they reached the ground floor, the foyer was much quieter. There were a few families checking out books, and a general hum of activity, but it certainly wasn’t the mad rush of earlier. Elias gave her a very brisk tour of the children’s section, which was much less cramped than upstairs. There was a spacious reading area with beanbags and one wall covered in a large mural of the cartoon owl perched on an open book, with the caption, ‘Maggie thinks reading is a hoot!’, and Elias also showed her the storeroom where they kept extra tables and chairs, and the two smaller activity rooms that could be used for quiet study by the public when they weren’t needed.

When they returned to the main staff room there was a tall woman in a hijab packing boxes of crayons into one of the cupboards. “Ah, Basira, there you are,” Elias said. “How did it go this morning?”

She smiled at him. “We had a very good morning, actually. A new family in, nobody ate any crayons, and everybody enjoyed ‘baby shark’.”

“I’m sure it was lovely.” Elias agreed blandly. “May I introduce Melanie, our new circulation services librarian?”

Basira transferred the smile to Melanie, who returned it. “Hi, it’s great to meet you. How are you finding it?”

“It’s a fantastic building, and everyone’s been really nice.” Melanie stepped forward to offer a hand, and Basira shook it. “I think I’m with you for a storytime later in the week, so I’ll look forward to that.”

“Wednesday morning,” Basira confirmed. “I hope you don’t mind reading to an audience?”

“I’ve definitely done weirder things,” Melanie temporised, “but they didn’t involve children.”

Elias cleared his throat. “Well, that finishes our tour and introductions, so you have an hour for lunch. I’ll leave you in Sasha’s capable hands for the afternoon, and you have your schedule for the rest of the week. If you have any questions, you’re welcome to ask me, but right now I do need to go, I’m supposed to be meeting Peter for lunch. Basira, can you make sure she finds everything in the kitchen, and meets Sasha?”

“No problem, we’ll get her sorted.” Basira waved him off cheerfully, turning to Melanie. “Did you bring lunch with you? If not there’s a couple of places close by, but it’s a long walk if there isn’t a convenient bus.”

“Have a nice lunch, boss,” Tim called after Elias, who didn’t reply, then he slid out of his chair, stretching. “If you do need to go get food,” he said to Melanie, “I’m going to pick up Sasha anyway. She’s on the late shift today, so she doesn’t start until after lunch, and unlike these plebs, I actually drive to work.”

“Needlessly destroying the environment as he does so,” Rosie put in primly, pulling on her blazer and picking up a book. “Besides, the gardens here are lovely, and most of us like to sit outside if the weather’s not too bad.”

“I brought lunch, since I wasn’t sure, but thanks anyway.” She directed the last part at Tim, who shrugged. “No worries. I’ll be back in a tick anyway, Sasha’s getting us lunch. Well, she’s getting me lunch, she’s having one of those horrible kale smoothies she likes.” He tipped an imaginary hat at Rosie and disappeared out the door. She gave an amused sort of huff and headed out as well.

Basira shook her head bemusedly. “Ugh. Kale. Come on, let’s go find some real food.” After a moment, Melanie followed Basira, who seemed like the sanest person around. This got her a brisk tour of the kitchen, and an explanation of the complimentary tea and coffee supplies, and the communal biscuit tin.

“And you can eat at your desk if you’d prefer, or go outside,” Basira concluded, getting out her own lunch, an interesting-looking salad. 

“Uh, I might try sitting outside, if you don’t mind?” Melanie fetched out her own sandwich, and scooped up her bag and coat. “I’ve had a busy morning.” 

Basira smiled wryly. “I bet. Okay, enjoy your fresh air and quiet.”

The gardens actually were lovely. Melanie walked for a few minutes, and fetched up on a bench underneath a huge old elm tree, where she could still see the back of the library but she couldn’t hear anything but the gentle sighing of the wind. It was a little chilly, but felt much more settled when she headed back in, and still with enough time for a cup of tea.

There was a woman Melanie hadn’t met sitting in the tearoom when she got back, who Melanie guessed was Sasha. She didn’t have to guess for long, because the woman stood up and held out a hand. “Hi, you must be Melanie! I’m Sasha, Sasha James.” Sasha was taller than Melanie, had far more piercings, and her long wavy hair was the kind of pastel rainbow that Melanie loved but was far too lazy to be bothered with. She grinned at Melanie as they shook hands, adjusting her cat’s eye glasses, and went on cheerfully, “It’s great to see a new face around here! And if you give me,” she glanced at her watch, “eight more minutes, then I’ll get you sorted, alright?” 

“Nice to meet you,” Melanie called after her, bemusedly, then shrugged and made herself that cup of tea. 

Spending the afternoon with Sasha was much less intense than the morning with Elias. 

She got Melanie set up with staff logins, and her new desk, and then said, “Look, the great thing about library management software is that all the different ones on the market today do basically the same things, so it’s just a matter of getting used to what everything is called and where to find it.”

Sasha showed her the basics of the system that they used, and once she was reasonably comfortable, gave her a few training exercises to work through. 

Melanie relaxed into it, and had fun signing up a new patron and dealing with some fines and checking books in and out, and then Sasha had a look at what she’d done.

“Okay, I reckon you’ll be fine. I’ve done you up some notes, but it’s mostly just practice. Why don’t you have a look around the catalogue, get familiar with our website and that sort of thing. I’ll be right here if you have any questions.”

All in all, it was a nice, quiet way to finish the day, and Melanie was almost sorry when it was time to leave.

Sasha patted her on the shoulder, “Don’t worry, it’ll still be here tomorrow,” and walked her out, then headed back in for her evening desk shift.

**Tuesday 21st March**

When she headed up to the attic to meet Jon, Melanie wasn’t sure what to expect. Obviously their usual method of dealing with one another, which involved high levels of sarcasm and basically disagreeing with everything the other one said on principle, wasn’t going to work here. But really they had nothing in common except a really good friend who they both loved dearly. 

Considering how few of her exes could stand to be in a room with her, Melanie had always been bewildered by Georgie’s ability to remain friends with all of hers... or possibly her tendency to make friends by dating people, Melanie wasn't really sure. 

She could also admit, to herself if no-one else, that the fact that Jon and Georgie had managed to date for almost two years when _she_ and Georgie hadn’t even managed two weeks was one of the reasons she resented him so much. Also, his tendency to come off as an arrogant asshole who thought you were beneath him. 

So, expecting a tense and difficult morning, she took the stairs instead of the lift. She made herself focus on her breath and the movement of her legs, and then paused at the top of the stairs and told herself firmly, “You are not going to fight with him. You’re colleagues now. Be professional.”

She nodded to herself, opened the door and stepped into the attic.

Jon was at the desk where she’d seen him before, which was now covered in piles of paper, and he was frowning at the one in his hand as if it had personally offended him.

“Morning?” Melanie said. He startled badly, fumbling the paper he was holding and almost knocking one of the other piles off the table.

“Melanie! I, sorry. I didn’t hear you come in, I was… distracted.”

“I figured. Uh, what’s wrong with that one?” She pointed at the page he was holding.

“What? Oh, it’s. Nothing’s _wrong_ with it, it’s just in the wrong place. But so is everything else, anyway.” He sounded exasperated. 

Melanie raised an eyebrow. “Everything?”

He sighed, and shook his head. “Not _everything_. Sorry. I just- Gertrude’s filing system is a nightmare, and we’ve barely managed to get a third of this stuff on the system. It’s frustrating.”

“Well.” She looked around. There weren’t any customers, and it was very quiet up here, a little eerie. “Do you have a minute to explain it to me?”

“Wh-” he blinked. “Oh! Right, yes, sorry. It’s Tuesday. I’ve got some notes for you, for if you ever need to find anything, although I’d like to make it clear that we are, very slowly, reorganising. So it’s all subject to change. Sasha’s set up a photo database for me, and we’re working on getting everything digitised and properly catalogued, so hopefully by next year all of Jonah’s private papers, at least, should be uploaded and fully searchable.”

To give him credit, the notes he’d put together for her were a neat booklet, and he’d had it sitting in a folder on the shelf by the desk. “Uh, right.” He handed it over without fanfare. “So, that explains what each of the collections are, we’ve got Jonah’s papers, which I mentioned, and his personal library, along with some research on his family by later historians. We have historical maps, and books and documents that were donated by other notable families in the area, and related records. Well, some of them, anyway.”

He sighed. “The thing is, we call this a public library, because the lending collection is open and free to use, but we aren’t actually affiliated with any government bodies and all our funding is private. So we don’t have the sort of documents that are usually given to public libraries, who usually get things like parish maps and land records. So if people come in trying to research their family history, unless they were in some way related to Jonah Magnus or his contemporaries, we aren’t going to have any hard-copy information that they can't find anywhere else.” 

He shrugged. “But we do have a subscription to ancestry and a few other sites, and we can certainly give them tips on searching and help out, which is often all people want. If they do need to find documents, we can tell them which library or institution is most likely to have those documents if they’re after records. It helps that libraries are doing their best to get everything uploaded, so all the old records are so much more accessible these days.”

“Right.” Melanie looked around. “So… if this whole section is basically just a tiny private museum dedicated to the Magnus family… What do you do up here, exactly?”

“Well, we do have researchers looking to use the Magnus collection fairly regularly, some of the books he collected are now incredibly rare and valuable, and we’re basically the only place that will let the general public access them for free. And… well, that we maintain this stuff was in Jonah’s will, we’re legally obligated to do so. Also, we get things donated quite often, which are often junk but someone still has to go through them. Beyond that… at the moment I’m trying to sort all the local documents.”

He was starting to sound exasperated again as he warmed to his topic. “Gertrude had a lot of the original documents just… in boxes, and while I remember she always seemed to know exactly where everything was, most of it isn’t labelled, or there are just dates, and it seems to be the date she _received_ the document, rather than anything to do with the contents.”

He ran a hand through his already-messy hair. “There are also a pile of cassette tapes from an old oral history project she did in the nineties, so we’re trying to get contact information for everyone who gave statements so that we can digitise them and add them to the collection, but they were all older people when they gave said statements, about thirty years ago, so a lot of the time we’re trying to find next-of-kin to get permission. Sasha is brilliant at that sort of thing, and Tim’s been helping out as well since he says it is sort of his remit, but obviously they have their own work and I can’t monopolise their time, so it’s slow going.”

He sighed, slumping a little, and then looked at her and winced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on. It’s not that bad, really, it’s just… a lot, and I feel like I’m not making as much progress as I should be. Look, let me show you around?”

“Sure,” Melanie agreed hurriedly. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Right. Well, it’s not a very large space, so this won’t take long.”

Jon was just showing her where to swipe her card to open the glass door when there was a soft ding from the elevator behind them, and Jon flinched slightly at the sound. 

They both turned to see a pale man with long black hair wander out. He was wearing all black, trench coat and skinny jeans and boots, and Melanie wondered with amusement if he was here to look at Jonah Magnus’s library and if this was what Tim had meant by the ‘interesting clientele’. 

Jon, surprisingly, relaxed as soon as he saw who it was and smiled. “Good morning, Gerry. I’d like you to meet Melanie King, she’s just started here. Melanie, this is Gerard Keay, he’s a volunteer.”

“Oh, are you Mikaele’s replacement? Nice to meet you.” He ambled over and held out a hand for her to shake. He had fingerless gloves on and there were stylised eyes tattooed on his knuckles, but his smile was friendly. 

Melanie shrugged as she shook the offered hand. “I… don’t know. Am I?” She turned to Jon.

“Oh, well, yes. Sorry.” He shook his head. “Mikaele was our circulation librarian, but Elias said he needed to revise the position description and couldn’t advertise immediately, so a couple of us have been taking turns filling in since he left.”

Melanie snorted. “Okay. Well, at least you’re all pleased that I’m here.”

Jon sighed. “You have no idea. Did Elias tell you you get to deal with all the complaints and fines?” 

Melanie shrugged. “I can handle it. I have a knack for being very polite while implying I could break somebody’s kneecaps. It’s all in the eyebrows.”

She smiled at Jon, arching one eyebrow sharply, and he actually laughed. “I- I believe you. Just… try not to get any complaints made about how you handle complaints, or Elias will send you to customer service training, and it’s incredibly tedious.”

She snorted. “Do I want to know what happened?”

“The customer is not always right, but apparently we aren’t allowed to tell them that. I- Sorry, Gerry, I should let you get settled. Can I get you a cup of tea?”

“No, thanks, I’m fine.” Gerry frowned, and turned to Melanie. “Oh, hey. You’ll be in charge of the volunteers now, I guess. Do I need to do anything for you, paperwork and that?”

Melanie shook her head. “Don’t quote me on this, I only started yesterday, but Elias said all the current volunteers should be fine.”

“Alright, well, let me know.” He gave her a crooked smile. “I’ll try not to give you too much trouble.” 

Melanie gave Jon a sideways look, and he snorted. “Gerry has been no trouble whatsoever. In fact, he’s been a great help, and I am very glad that he keeps coming back.”

Gerry shifted a little awkwardly, and the tips of his ears went slightly pink. “Oh, well. I’m really just doing data entry at the moment, scanning some old letters and then putting up transcripts to go with them so that they’re searchable. It’s hardly rocket science.”

Jon shook his head. “It all needs to get done, and I know it’s not the most exciting work, so I really am very grateful.”

Gerry shrugged, and gave him a wry smile. “I need a reason to get out of bed on my late shift days, otherwise I completely fuck up my sleep schedule. I work in a tattoo parlour,” he explained to Melanie, “And we keep odd hours. Besides, I like it up here. It’s quiet and a little spooky, and the company’s not bad.”

Jon blinked, and then said, “Ah, thank you, I think? Though you’re probably lucky that you don’t get here until after ten, by which point I’ve had two cups of tea and can do a reasonable approximation of a human being.”

Gerry chuckled. “I’ve seen worse, don’t worry.” 

Jon turned back to Melanie, looking just a little bit flustered. Melanie smirked slightly, and he narrowed his eyes at her. “Uh, anyway. Gerry normally just sets up at the other computer, so we’ll leave him to it.”

He actually smiled at Gerry, and shooed Melanie back towards the shelves.

“Right, so.” Jon waved a hand at the glass wall. “The Jonah Magnus collection, here we are.”

Jon let her swipe her new ID card to open the sliding glass door, and it slid open with a quiet whooshing sound. All along the wall beneath the painting were a chest-high shelves full of old leather-bound books.

Melanie sidled closer, intrigued. “So, the general public are allowed to access these?”

“Yes, but we require them to fill out a request form, and they have to read them at the desk. Most of these are extremely rare and would be worth a packet to the right collector.”

Melanie nodded. There were a few she recognised, like the Lesser Key of Solomon and King James’s Daemonologie, and a lot she didn’t, in latin and german and some other scripts she didn’t recognise. A lot of the titles she could read were about philosophy and spirituality and more stuff on demons. “Specific sort of collector, was he?”

“Hmm?” Jon blinked at her. He’d been staring at the portrait.

“Jonah Magnus. Had a particular collection focus, shall we say?”

“Oh, yes. He was very interested in spiritualism, and the occult. He started collecting stories, firsthand where he could get them, of various kinds of supernatural happenings, hauntings and the like. You’re welcome to have a look through, if you’re interested?”

She raised an eyebrow at the careful tone. “Is it a problem if I am?”

“Uh, no. I just… Didn’t want to assume.”

They eyed each other. Melanie remembered several rather loud arguments they’d had regarding ghost stories, pseudoscience, and the kind of people who made a living combining the two. And... it was good to know that Jon was making an effort not to pick a fight with her, too. Maybe they’d both survive working in the same building after all.

“I… would like to have a look. Maybe some other time?”

Jon nodded, and they both relaxed slightly. The he went on with his explanation. “As I said, it’s a large collection, both the published works and the, ah, stories. Spiritualism was rather in vogue when he began looking, so he managed to find quite an extensive variety of accounts, some of them given to him personally and others sent by his friends. There was a revival of interest a few decades ago, that’s actually what the oral history project Gertrude worked on was about. We still get people sending things in or coming in to tell their ghost stories, it’s actually quite fascinating.”

“Thought you didn't believe in all that?”

“Fascinating from a sociological point of view,” Jon said loftily. 

“Right,” Melanie said flatly.

Jon sighed. “I don’t… _not_ believe in ghosts. And I think there are a lot of things that can’t be explained by science yet.”

Melanie eyed him thoughtfully. “Rational scepticism, colour me shocked.” 

Jon snorted. “Well, I’ll leave you to browse, shall I? And if you have any questions, you know where to find me.”

“Sure.” He turned away, and Melanie added, “Call me when you get a customer?”

Jon glanced over his shoulder. “If.”

And indeed, by the time Melanie wandered back out of the shelves after taking an interesting but rather haphazard survey of the Magnus Collection, Jon and Gerry were both sitting quietly, typing away at separate computers, and the room was otherwise abandoned.

“Well, I’m heading to lunch. Thanks for the notes, Jon, I think I know where to find everything up here.”

They both blinked at her, then Gerry glanced at his watch. “Right, I’d better go too.” He turned to Jon. “Do you want to come with, get something to eat?”

Jon looked tempted, but his eyes kept sliding back to the papers on his desk. “Ah, thanks, but I really should finish this. I’ll see you Thursday?”

“Sure thing.” Gerry shrugged. “Nice meeting you, Melanie. See you Thursday, Jon.”

Melanie looked from Jon to Gerry, and mentally wished Gerry luck, because he was going to need it. 

After lunch, she scooted her chair over to Tim’s desk, and looked at him expectantly.

Tim grinned at her, rubbing his hands together. “Okay, now for the fun part!”

“Ooookay,” Melanie said uncertainly, but the grin was infectious and she was starting to smile back. “So, tell me about library events.”

“Yes! Now, you’ve had the tour, so you know: This place is _spooky_. Old house, weird rich guy who collected ghost stories and books about demons, that giant portrait of him upstairs that follows you around the room with its eyes, the whole bit. No idea how Jon can stand working up there, it gives me the creeps.“

“So, there are two ways you can go when you’re trying to advertise that, and we decided to roll with it. It’s been great! We have the little cartoon owl and some cute friendly ghosts in the kids section, and we use all the old-timey fonts for the signage upstairs and in the attic, and we market our events on the theme. Every day is Halloween, that kind of thing, but we also get a surprising number of people who are serious about spiritualism and things hiring out our events room.”

“Plus, we’ve managed to lure in a surprisingly large number of authors - fantasy and mystery mostly, we’re really popular with the urban fantasy authors. The library has a bit of cachet now, since we’ve had a couple of big names come out and do readings. And, well, I used to be in publishing, so I still have some contacts, and if they’ve got an up-and-coming author we can often help each other out. Elias was a little iffy about it to start with, but we’ve had such great attendance rates that he said it’s fine so long as I don’t let anybody actually perform a seance and try to contact Jonah Magnus.”

Melanie snorted. “Oh god, did somebody actually ask?”

Tim shrugged. “Yeah, and it would have been a fantastic All Hallow’s Eve event, but Elias said it was disrespectful and the Board wouldn’t like it. And, well, they’re the ones who let us have money for events, so I try not to piss them off. Oh, hey, you used to do a YouTube channel, right? A ghost-related one?”

“Yes, why?” If it turned out that everybody here was a Ghost Hunt fan, she was going to… well, she wasn't sure whether to be pleased or sort of embarrassed. 

“Would you consider doing a talk on YouTubing? We had a friend of Jon’s come in and do one on podcasting and it was incredibly popular.”

“Oh. Uh, what kind of talk? I’m okay at public speaking but I’m not the best teacher. Also, my channel sort of fell apart in a fairly public fashion, so I don’t know how good an example I’d be.”

Tim frowned. “Oh, hey, if you’re not comfortable talking about it, don’t let me push you into doing anything. This is completely optional, and I’m not trying to pin you down to anything on your second day, alright? Just… putting it out there.”

“Right. Well… let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you?”

“No worries, and like I said, strictly optional. Even if you did say yes, it’d take a few months of organising before anything happened, okay?”

Melanie nodded. “Sorry, just… wasn’t expecting that. Um. Oh, hey, was that Georgie Barker you had in to do the podcasting talk?”

Tim blinked. “Yeah, it was. Huh. Does Jon only have the one friend that does a podcast, or…”

Melanie snorted. “I can’t comment on the rest of Jon’s friends, but Georgie is the reason we know each other.”

“Ah, okay. She seemed awesome, although she was a bit disappointed that Elias wouldn’t let her record an episode in here, especially after Sasha told her the place was haunted.”

“Georgie’s great,” Melanie agreed. “It’s too bad about the episode, though. I would have thought that would be great publicity. ‘What the Ghost?’ is quite popular.”

“Yeah, but Elias was pretty definite about that one.” Tim shrugged. “Some combination of the Board and logistics, possibly insurance, I can’t remember exactly. But if you were planning to ask about filming here, that’s hard no. Besides, the acoustics around here are a pain. We’ve got the Events room nicely soundproofed, but you get a lot of weird echoes in here,” he waved a hand towards the foyer, “with all the staircases and the hard floors, and that glass wall in the attic, too. We’re in the process of trying to make a virtual tour for the website, and the video works fine but we’re going to have to do the voiceover separately because the audio just keeps getting distortions. And before you ask, Sasha has already checked and it isn’t spooky voices.”

“EVP,” Melanie corrected.

“What?”

“Electronic Voice Phenomena.” She grinned. “Sounds much more scientific than spooky ghost voices.”

He chuckled. “Alright, I’ll try to remember that for next time. But either way, there wasn’t any.”

“Too bad, that could have been really cool.”

“Yeah, Sasha was very disappointed too.”

“Not you, though?”

Tim shook his head. “Look, if the place is haunted, it’s probably Jonah Magnus, right? Owner of all the weird shit we keep in the attic? If I were going to have a paranormal encounter, he would _not_ be my first choice.”

Melanie raised her eyebrows. “I- Yeah, fair enough. How did he die, anyway?”

Tim shrugged. “Apoplexy, apparently. Which was generally stroke, but also a bit of a catch-all for ‘dropped dead suddenly’ back in the day, so who knows? Could have been murdered by demons.”

Melanie laughed, and settled in as Tim described what they were planning for the upcoming school holidays.

**Wednesday 22nd March**

Melanie surprised herself by enjoying storytime. 

She was used to performing for a camera, which was very different to having about twenty kids sitting on the floor staring up at you. Then it occurred to her partway through reading out ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ that the last time she’d actually gotten up in front of people was when she did improv comedy at university, and once she’d made that association she could feel herself relaxing, her smile becoming more real, so she went with it. 

The kids giggled when she made astonished faces as the caterpillar ate ever more things, and she grinned at them. Afterwards, she and Basira kept an eye on them while they carefully constructed paper-chain caterpillars with the help of their parents. 

In between handing out glue and pipe-cleaner antennae, Basira nudged her shoulder lightly. “You were pretty good up there, are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

Melanie shook her head, shrugging. “I did some improv stuff when I was at uni the first time, but not with kids. I thought they’d be a much tougher audience.”

Basira laughed. “Kids are pretty easy if they’re engaged. They can tell right away if _you_ don’t want to be there, and that’s one of the quickest ways to lose them, but you did fine.”

When they were packing up, Basira said casually, “So, was it as terrible as you were expecting?”

“I wasn’t expecting it to be _terrible_,” Melanie protested. “...but I wasn't expecting it to be fun, either. Not sure I could manage it twice a week, though.”

Basira shrugged. “Mondays and Wednesdays. You get used to it, and normally I’d have one of the assistants helping instead of two librarians. I’m just checking because I do _occasionally_ like to have time off, and it’s a hassle getting somebody to cover for me, especially since Jon’s so busy lately.”

Melanie’s eyebrows rose. “Really?

Basira chuckled. “I know, but he gets quite into it and the kids like him because he doesn’t talk down to them.”

They finished packing all the supplies into a trolley and trundled it noisily across the foyer into the staff area. Basira parked it next to her desk, and then stretched, cracking her spine. 

“Right, you go on to lunch, I’ll pack this lot back in the cupboards, won’t be a minute.”

Melanie hesitated. “You sure?” 

Basira waved her off. “It’s alright, I know where everything goes.” She opened one of the cupboards, and Melanie’s eyes widened at the shelves packed full with colourful craft items. Basira started putting the boxes of glue and scissors into an empty space, and Melanie shrugged, took her at her word, and headed to the tearoom.

She sat down in the staff room and worked through a short breathing exercise while the kettle boiled. She’d made a cup of peppermint tea and settled in with her sandwich and the book she was reading when Basira came in. She took a container out of the fridge and popped it into the microwave, leaning against the counter and looking at Melanie. 

“What?” Melanie asked, hunching slightly.

Basira shook her head. “Nothing. Sorry, am I interrupting? If you’d rather read, that’s no problem.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. I only get stroppy about being interrupted if I’m at a good bit.”

Basira laughed. “Fair call. Alright, well, I’m going to pop out and call Daisy, my partner, so I’ll be back in a minute. If you’ve gotten to a good bit, just glare at me and I’ll go get my own book.”

Basira was as good as her word, and they settled into a comfortable silence broken only by the turning of pages. 

After lunch her schedule just said, ‘Health and Safety training with Sasha’ but that apparently involved Sasha setting her up with an online training course and leaving her to it, so it made for a nice change after the hectic morning. 

**Thursday 23rd March**

When Melanie sat down on the bus next to Sasha, Sasha gave her a bright smile. “So, are you ready to face the public?”

Melanie sighed. “How are you so cheerful first thing in the morning?”

Sasha shrugged. “I get up early and do yoga.”

Melanie scowled. “Ugh, really?”

“Yup. Disgusting, I know,” Sasha agreed, laughing at her. “And then my girlfriend and I take turns making breakfast.”

“I hate you,” Melanie groaned. “How are you even real.”

Sasha just laughed at her some more, and Melanie rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I faced the public yesterday. They were knee-high and wanted to eat crayons.”

Sasha snorted. “Better you than me. I really can’t deal with kids. At least the adults I know how to help!”

When they got up to the reference desk, Sasha made sure she knew how the printers worked, and said cheerfully, “Don’t worry, the most common questions we get up here are ‘I’ve forgotten my email password’ and ‘How do I print this attachment’. Forgetting your password means they have to reset it, fingers crossed they’ve got their phone number on the account, just do whatever the website says. Printing attachments is also pretty simple, most of the time they’re trying to print from a preview screen which is…” she see-sawed a hand, “not always great. Get them to download the file and then open it, that usually works. If you get anything more complicated, I’m right here, and if I’m busy you can just ask them to wait a minute. The patrons are usually pretty understanding, and it’s your first week! So just relax.”

Melanie found once they got started, it actually wasn’t that bad. Sasha had been pretty accurate in her assessment of the patrons’ questions, and she only had to ask for help a few times. The occasional book-related question was a nice break, and she took people into the shelves and helped them find their books. 

There were a couple of people napping in the armchairs, but they seemed to be fine so Melanie left them to it. 

When she got back from an expedition to the teen fiction section and Sasha told her to go to lunch, Melanie was honestly startled to find that it had been three and a half hours. Sasha grinned at her. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re enjoying it, but seriously, go to lunch. I think this is some sort of sink-or-swim thing, because you’ve got to come back for the afternoon as well. I’ll see you down there after I swap with Tim.”

Melanie thanked her, and headed downstairs. It wasn’t until she dropped into a chair in the tea room that she realised she’d been on her feet all morning, and sighed with relief. 

It was a bit of a struggle getting up again, but Sasha wished her luck and gave her a handful of M&Ms, and Melanie trotted up the stairs with her mouth full of chocolate and got back into it. 

It was getting on towards five, and Melanie was starting to feel quite ready to go home, when a brunette woman in a slightly-rumpled skirt suit came up to the desk and said, “Sorry, could you give me a hand? I don’t know what’s gone wrong with my document.”

Melanie followed her back to her computer and stared at the document. 

It had opened up in Word, but the text was some kind of little swirls that looked like they were bleeding down the page.

The woman responsible for this mess sighed. “Is there anything you can do? Sorry, I just… my boss messaged me to say they’ve had to rearrange my clients tomorrow so I’ve got to start early, which means I can’t stop by the office in the morning and print this out, but we close at four and I don’t have a printer at home. I thought I’d just stop in here and quickly get this sorted but… ugh. Does this mean the file is corrupted? I could probably-“

Melanie shook herself. The computer wasn’t possessed, the file was probably just damaged or something. She checked the woman’s email and looked at the attachment, and then hesitated. “Hang on, what kind of file _is_ this?” She’d never seen a .not extension before. 

“Uh, it’s…” The woman looked at the email too and groaned. “Oh, no. My boss is too cheap to shell out for actual Microsoft Office, and instead of using one of the actually-good free alternatives, we have this weird one he got from some friend of his. They always give me trouble on my phone, too. Is it that?”

“Maybe. If we’re lucky, it just doesn’t recognise the font and,” a simple ‘select all’ and she changed the font to arial, and intelligible words appeared. “Okay! The formatting is probably completely screwed, sorry.”

“No, that’s brilliant,” the woman breathed. “Oh, I can fix that up easily, and, thank you so much, I didn’t even think to try that. It’s been a very long day and I just couldn’t deal with one more thing going wrong, you know.”

She smiled at Melanie, a crooked little smile with honest-to-god dimples and Melanie’s brain briefly stalled out as it did a rapid reassessment from customer-with-problem to attractive-woman-smiling-at-me. She could feel her cheeks heating up, and she rubbed a hand through her hair to cover the sudden awkwardness. “Oh, well. I mean, it was a simple enough fix, but I can see how opening up your document to find gibberish instead of important work could really throw you.”

“Well, I appreciate the tact, anyway," the woman said with a soft laugh. "My name’s Helen, I’m in here quite a lot, but I don’t think I’ve met you before?”

“Oh, first week. I’m, uh, I’m Melanie.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Melanie. I’ll try not to bother you with silly questions too often.”

“Oh, no, go right ahead! Not that the question was silly. Um. I’m going to. Go back to the desk. But, feel free to ask us if you need more help?”

Helen was chuckling a little as she said, “Sure. Thank you again, you’re a lifesaver.”

“No problem! All in a day’s work. Uhm. Bye.”

Melanie walked slowly and carefully and managed not to trip embarrassingly on her way back to the desk. 

Tim raised an eyebrow at her flushed face, but she just shook her head at him, and said, “Is it time to go home yet?”

“Five more minutes,” he said, and, “Hey, my first desk shift I managed to completely screw up the printer and Adelard, who was the systems librarian before Sasha, had to put down his lunch to come out and fix it. He was really nice about it, but I felt like such a heel. So you’re doing great!”

Melanie snorted. “Well, I’m grateful that you set the bar low.”

“Ouch!” He swayed back pretending injury. “Seriously though, you’re picking it all up really quickly. And everybody likes you! Except for Jon, but that’s just his face. So I think you’ll be fine.”

“Thanks.” Melanie smiled up at him, because that actually was reassuring, and she was still feeling buoyed by that when Basira came to take over the desk and send them home.

**Friday 24th March**

Melanie made sure she was in a little bit early on Friday, since she was supposed to be accompanying Martin on the home library service run. 

He greeted her cheerfully, and she helped pack crates of books into the van, and then they set off. Martin started telling her about the people along the morning's route, and she rapidly found herself lost in the flurry of information about various elderly people, their family situations, pets, and what they liked to read. 

She realised about five minutes into the first visit that she was not going to enjoy this the way she had storytime. 

Martin was brilliant with all of his clients, apparently happy to sit and chat and take notes when they talked about the previous lot of books, and he was friendly and interested as they talked about their day. 

Melanie, on the other hand, had to resist the urge to fidget while she tried to make small talk so that she wasn’t just sitting there staring. She knew she tended to be impatient, but every visit took so long!

There were also a couple of patrons who clearly weren’t well, who would be fine one moment and confused the next, or repeat the same statement three and four times during a conversation, and it just made her think of her father. 

He’d always remembered _her_, right up until the end, but he kept forgetting her mother was dead. Melanie had had to tell him, over and over again, or else pretend that she’d gone to visit a friend and hope he remembered on his own before he started wondering why she’d been gone so long. 

She hadn’t wanted to put him in a home, but after a while it had just been awful for both of them.

Martin gave her a concerned look when they got back in the van after the worst of those. “Are you going to be alright?” 

His face had gone soft and sympathetic again, and it made Melanie twitchy, so she said hurriedly, “Sorry, I’ve never been very good with the elderly. You’re really patient with them, though.”

“Oh, well.” He went faintly pink. “They just want somebody to listen to them, mostly. A lot of them don’t have any family, or no-one who lives close, and they’re a bit lonely. I don’t mind, and it does help to know what sort of books to bring them.”

Melanie nodded, and thankfully there was only one more after that, a hawk-like old man who thanked Martin for the last lot, and asked for some more Clive Cussler books. Martin promised to do his best, and then they were were heading back to the library at last.

There was an awkward silence for a few minutes, and then Martin said, “So. Probably not going to put your hand up if _I_ need someone to cover a shift, I take it.”

Melanie winced. “Sorry, really not my area.”

“No, hey, don’t worry, Tim usually covers the run if I can’t make it. He’s pretty good at people, and then I spend weeks getting asked when that ‘handsome young man’ is going to be coming back, so I assume he spends the entire time flirting with the clients.” Martin rolled his eyes fondly. “Anyway, it’s not your job so you shouldn’t ever _have_ to do it.”

“Okay, that’s a relief.” She paused thoughtfully. “Not Jon?”

“What?” Martin startled. 

“You don’t get Jon to take the run? I would have thought he’d be great at talking to the elderly.”

“Um.” Martin winced. “Well, he’s not bad at that, but he is a really terrible driver, and the van can be a bit tricky.”

“Ah. Yeah, fair enough. We had one for Ghost Hunt, it could be a proper pain, and turned like a barge.”

Martin nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, exactly. Everybody else can manage, but we don’t make Jon or Sasha drive the van unless it’s a dire emergency.”

“Good to know.”

After lunch, Melanie had some time to log onto her computer and poke around in her mostly-empty email for a bit before she had her catch-up with Elias.

While she was there, Basira wandered up to lean against Melanie’s desk, arms full of brightly coloured material. “Hey, I don’t know if you’d be up for it, first week and all, but a few of us usually go down the pub after we finish up of a Friday. You interested?”

Melanie blinked at her. She had some kind of red antenna headband on over her hijab, the little pom-poms bouncing whenever she moved. “Uh, depends. You going like that?”

Basira blinked, then squinted upwards. “Oh! Ha, no, I was trying them out for next week’s story time. We’re doing the ladybird song, it’ll be fun. I’ve only walked out of the building wearing costumes once. Or twice. Maybe three times? Daisy occasionally reminds me of the time I was meeting her for dinner and showed up in a flower crown, but she said it suited me and made me leave it on.” Her smile went soft and fond, a little sheepish. 

Melanie shifted awkwardly. “Uh, right. Is Daisy coming tonight? I haven’t met her yet.”

“Nah, this is just library staff, but Daisy comes by pretty often, I’ll be sure to introduce you next time? This is sort of our end-of-the-week de-stress. The food’s pretty good, and you can leave whenever you like, no worries.”

“Okay.” Melanie smiled up at her. “Uh, well, if funny headbands aren’t mandatory, I’d love to come. Is there a particular time, or do we all leave together or what?”

“Nothing so formal. It’s the Lightless Flame, two blocks down that way,” she waved in the direction of the main gates. “Whoever gets there first snags a booth and the rest of us trickle in as we finish up. Jon does the late shift Fridays because he has no life, and sometimes he’ll stop by after closing, if he feels like it.”

Melanie raised an eyebrow. “You actually get Jon to socialise? I’m impressed.”

“Oh yeah, you guys are old friends, right?” Melanie opened her mouth to correct the ‘friends’ part, but Basira had already gone on, “It works out okay, this way he doesn’t have to make up excuses if he’s not feeling it, and by the time he gets there we’re winding down so he’s not stuck with us for five hours.”

Melanie blinked. “Ah, well, that’s… thoughtful. So who is coming?”

“Me, obviously. Tim, Sasha, and Martin. And maybe Jon.” Basira eyed her for a moment. “Alright?”

“Right, yeah. The, what was it, the Lighted Flame?”

“Lightless. Okay, cool. I’m going to go… take off my ladybird antennae. I’m on desk now, so I’ll hopefully see you there!”

Melanie nodded, and Basira gave her a friendly smile and turned away. So that was fine, she could go be a human for a few more hours. They were librarians, and she hadn't asked but probably Basira didn’t drink either, so she figured that wouldn’t be an issue, and if she needed to go they’d just chalk it up to her being wrecked after her first week on a new job. That settled, she went to find Elias. 

Elias came out of his office just as she stepped into the hall, and smiled at her. Melanie wasn’t willing to take that as a good sign after her disaster of a morning, but it was nice of him anyway. 

“Really, Melanie, there’s no need to look so nervous,” he said mildly, ushering her into his office. “Honestly, I think you’ve done an excellent job this week.”

“R-right. Uh, well, I thought everything went fairly well, although I don’t think I’m cut out for home library service, so I hope that won’t be a problem.”

“Oh, not at all. I did say this week was meant to be an overview, to make sure you understood how everything worked. Admittedly, it was also to see what you were good at, it always helps to know that we have another person who can cover a storytime session, but you aren’t required to do so. And it’s early days yet but you seem to be fitting in well with the other staff, which is lovely to see.”

“Oh.” Melanie smiled, the nervous tension going out of her shoulders. “Well, thank you! That’s great to hear. So… you said this was a progress meeting?”

Elias set a folder on the desk. “Well, now that you have a better understanding of the library and how everything works, here are your actual duties. Take the rest of the afternoon to familiarise yourself with the procedures; it should all be self-explanatory, but if you do have any further questions, you know where to find me. And I’ll walk you through a few of the more complicated ones, fine notices and the like, on Monday.”

“Alright, I- Thank you. I guess I’ll… get on with that.”

“Well, if I don’t see you later, have a pleasant evening and weekend.” Elias was still smiling, and she said, “Er, thanks. You too!” and shuffled out with her new folder.

She didn’t have any questions. 

If Elias had written this himself, the man was both incredibly detail-oriented and thought everyone was an idiot. 

She stayed at her computer until a little while after the others had left before she grabbed her bag and went to find the pub, just to be sure that she wouldn’t get there first.

The Lightless Flame was warm and cozy, full but not crowded, and while there was a telly showing some sort of sports game, the booth the others were in was at the opposite end of the room. 

“Hey, glad you could make it!” Tim called cheerfully, giving her a wave, and there was a chorus of similar sentiments around the table as she reached them. 

Sasha gave her a friendly grin, patting the seat next to her, so Melanie slid in. 

The benches were long and comfy, so they weren’t squashed together uncomfortably even with Basira as well. Tim and Martin were taking up a bit more room on the other side, but it all looked… comfortable.

“Right. So, here we are, you survived your first week at Magnus. Good job! What’ll you have? I’m buying.” Tim, at least, was both cheerful and talkative.

“Ginger beer if they’ve got non-alcoholic, otherwise lemonade.” Melanie said firmly.

Tim nodded. “No problem. I’ll grab a drinks menu though, Jude’s got some amazing mocktails or this really nice locally-brewed kombucha if that’s more your thing.”

“Oh!’ Melanie smiled at him, startled. “Actually, kombucha sounds great!”

“Awesome. Ginger, maybe? I think there’s an apple or a…” he paused for a moment, turning to squint at the bar, but Melanie laughed. “Ginger’s great, thanks.”

He returned the smile. “Excellent. You get a drink, I don’t have to get out my glasses and admit I’m secretly a nerd. Back in a minute.”

“Nerds are hot!” Sasha called after him, and Tim turned back for a moment, laughing, to respond “Yes, yes they are!”

Sasha adjusted her cats-eye glasses primly, and then grinned at Melanie again. “Stereotypes are harmful.”

Melanie snorted, giving her a once-over that took in both the multiple piercings and the pastel rainbow of her hair. “Well, good work on breaking down the ‘boring librarian’ stereotype, anyway.”

Basira laughed. “Nobody boring works at Magnus, not for long anyway.”

“Yeah, right. Jon’s been there for years.”

“Jon’s not boring,” Martin said, frowning at her.

Melanie looked at him. Blinked. Raised her eyebrows slowly. Martin flushed under the scrutiny. “Well, he’s not. He’s-“

“He has strong feelings about the Oxford comma.” Melanie told him flatly. Basira snorted, and Sasha giggled. 

“Well,” Martin said desperately. “Um. It’s important? Punctuation, I mean. It can make a real difference to some things, like… poetry.”

“Ooh,” Sasha put in, clearly taking pity, “I saw one of those the other day, with the commas. It was ‘You can have my Oxford comma when you pry it from my cold, dead, and lifeless hands.’” She emphasised the commas carefully, grinning. “Think Jon would like a mug?”

Basira grinned back. “Nah, he loves his cat one too much.” She leaned over a little. “Hey, he’s got this mug with a cat on it, but he says it’s not his cat and refuses to tell us about it. Any ideas?”

Melanie sighed. “Uh, I think you guys have slightly the wrong idea about how close me and Jon are. We know each other from university, okay, but we aren’t exactly best pals. We mostly know each other because of- Oh. Uh, is it a grey tabby?”

There was a moment of dead silence. Somebody at the next table over said, “Oh, no way, his sister?” and several people cackled with laughter.

“Yes,” Sasha said slowly, ‘the cat in question is indeed a grey tabby. Are you familiar with this feline?”

“Uh, look-“ Melanie began, and then breathed out in relief as a drink was set in front of her. Tim slid back into the booth, and said, “Okay, what did I miss?”

“Melanie knows Jon’s cat,” Martin said intently.

Tim looked puzzled for a moment, then his face cleared. “Ohhhh, the one on his mug? So whose is it?”

Melanie sighed again. “It’s Georgie’s cat. She and Jon used to date. Why is this so interesting to you people?”

“Well, getting personal information out of Jon is like pulling teeth,” Tim said easily. “And we’re curious people. So naturally we all figured he had some sort of amazing secret life in which he is both cool and tragic, and by ‘we all’ I mean Martin.”

“Tim!” Martin squeaked, going red again.

“Right.” Melanie sighed. “Honestly, the only mysterious thing about Jon is how he can convince otherwise sensible people that he’s attractive and interesting, despite his penchant for dressing like somebody’s grandfather.”

“I don’t- I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Martin stammered.

“Wait, so is he actually a hipster or did he just sort of become one accidentally?” Sasha asked, sounding genuinely interested.

“Argh, I don’t know. _I_ didn’t date him, and I really don’t have any magical insight into the inner workings of Jonathan Sims, okay? Sorry.” She directed the last part at Martin, pointedly. He blushed harder.

“No, we’re sorry,” Sasha said sheepishly. “Actually, we got sidetracked. Why don’t you tell us about you?”

Melanie stared at her in horror. “On second thought, can we go back to talking about Jon?”

They all cracked up, and she felt sort of proud about that, enough to take a breath, take a sip of her drink and make an appreciative face at Tim when it was quite nice. He gave her a pleased grin back, and raised his glass to tap against her bottle. “Seriously though, if you can learn anything from the previous conversation, it’s that we all love a good mystery. So, why don’t you just tell us all about yourself now, and we’ll get bored and not bother you about it again?”

“Right. Well, uh, I went to uni straight out of school, was doing economics, hated it, dropped out, tried a few other things, then I finally got my act together and went back to studying, finished my information science degree about three months ago and then I got the job here.”

“Huh. So you’ve never worked at a library before?” Basira asked thoughtfully.

“Look, I know I don’t have a lot of experience, but Elias seemed pretty sure that I could do the job, and-”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Basira said hurriedly. “It’s just a bit weird, is all. See, none of us have either. We all started out doing other stuff and got into libraries as a second profession, I think Jon’s the only one who’s never worked in any other field, and Elias picked him straight out of uni too.”

“Huh.” Melanie looked around the table. “Okay. So you,” she nodded at Tim, “used to be in publishing, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Some personal stuff happened, I wanted a change of pace, switched over. I like it here, though, and it helps having all the contacts already.”

“I was in programming,” Sasha volunteered. “Worked for a few startups, considered making my own but I never really had the creative talent. I’m better at working with other people’s ideas than having my own, and I got tired of how unstable the whole thing was, decided I wanted something a bit steadier. Great thing about this job, you get your nine-to-five, public holidays and sick leave, and in the evening you can walk out and leave it at the door. The people are way more chill, too.”

“Yeah, that was part of what I liked,” Basira puts in. “I was in the police for a bit. I don’t regret it, it was good experience and I’d not have met Daisy, otherwise. But it wasn’t for me. So I got into this.”

Melanie looked at Martin. He sighed. “I, ah. I wanted to be a poet. But I’m not actually very good? And the only other thing I could have really done with that was to be a teacher, but I’m a terrible teacher, so. I really like libraries, and, I really like where I am now?”

“All the old people love him,” Tim said conspiratorially. “He’s been known to move furniture and change light bulbs for them.”

“That was _one time_,” Martin muttered, blushing again, but he’d lost the strained look.

Melanie shrugged. “Well, I think you all know I used to have a ghost-hunting YouTube channel.”

“That must have been so weird,” Martin said fervently. “What was it like?”. 

Basira snorted, but Sasha and Tim were leaning in too, looking fascinated. 

Melanie felt herself flushing, and it made her a bit shorter than she meant to be when she snapped, “I’d rather not… I mean, it didn’t end well.”

“Sorry.” Sasha nudged her shoulder companionably. “We love paranormal stuff.”

“Martin and Sasha are convinced the Library is haunted,” Tim put in, “but I’m still fairly sure it’s just the building making weird noises.”

“Really?” Melanie looked at them both with interest. “I mean, it is an old building, but... Any good stories?”

Basira sighed. “Right, if you’re swapping ghost stories, let me up. I’m going to the loo. And then we should order food.”

There was a murmur of agreement to the last part. 

“You’re not a fan of ghost stories?” Melanie asked Basira, as she and Sasha shuffled out to let her pass. 

Basira shrugged. “I’ve been told I have the wrong sort of aura. I went on a ghost tour once, and the little EMF detector thingy actually stopped doing anything when I was holding it, so I believe it.”

“Well,” Melanie said thoughtfully. “That’s not actually a bad thing. If it turns out the Library _is_ haunted, I’m going to sit next to you.”

Basira gave a startled laugh. “Alright, sure. I’ll protect you from the ghosts with the power of scepticism.”

Melanie tipped a shoulder awkwardly. “Thanks. I’ve seen some stuff, and it’s not always the fun kind of scary, you know?”

Basira gave her a slightly-bemused nod, before heading off in the direction of the bathrooms.

“Right.” Sasha had lowered her voice a bit, making them all lean in closer to hear her, and Melanie mentally gave her points for drama. “So. I’m guessing you got the spiel from Elias, about Jonah Magnus willing his house over to be a library and the Fund and all that, and that’s why we have the Magnus Collection in the attic and why the Local History section is such a big deal, right?”

“Yes…” Melanie said carefully.

“Well, what Elias probably _didn’t_ tell you is that Jonah Magnus was into a _lot_ of weird occult stuff. You've seen his book collection, yeah? Now, I’ve had a look through, and some of it is the usual demon-summoning nonsense, which I don’t put a lot of stock in. But there’s also a lot of natural philosophy, and a heap of personal letters from a group of friends he had. A couple of them were big names in the occult community back in the day, and the letters are mostly involved with sacred geometry and communing with higher powers, and there’s a distinct possibility that they were actually a cult.”

“They were _not_ a cult,” Tim put in irritably. “Smirke was not in a cult.”

Sasha sighed. “Right. Sorry. That’s Robert Smirke, the architect. He was one of Jonah’s regular correspondents. Also Tim is a fan.”

Tim scowled. “He had revolutionary ideas about the relationship between buildings and psychological health.” His tone was sharp. “There’s stuff they’re doing now that he theorised about centuries ago, but people decided it was mystical claptrap and didn’t listen.”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, he was an unappreciated genius, we know. Okay, Robert Smirke wasn’t in a cult. But I still maintain that Jonah Magnus might have been. One of his other regular pen pals was Maxwell Rayner, who actually _did_ found a cult sometime in the mid-1800s. It was called the People’s Church of the Divine Host, they were pretty big back in the eighties? And they’re still around now. They’ve got a website, and if you manage to get past their security it’s actually all about this apocalyptic god they believe is going to come remake the world. It’s quite spooky, actually. Also they believe that their leader is still Maxwell Rayner, even though he died over a century ago, because he does some sort of magic ritual and transfers his soul to a ‘willing host’. Annnnd…” 

She paused dramatically. Melanie sort of wanted to roll her eyes, but she was also reluctantly intrigued. “In one of his letters to Jonah, Rayner says he would agree to share ‘the secrets of his greatest discovery’ but that he wasn’t willing to commit them to paper because he couldn’t trust Jonah to destroy the information after he read it. Jonah set up the Magnus Trust a couple of months after that letter, and I think he went to meet with Rayner.”

Melanie stared at her. “You… what? You think Jonah Magnus… Learned how to possess people? And that’s why he turned his house into a library? I’m not sure I follow.”

“That’s not the only thing the Trust does. I figure it has a bunch of clauses in there so that Jonah can go on having access to his money and his house even when he changes bodies.” Sasha shrugged. “It would certainly explain why Elias is so weird about Jon.”

Melanie blinked, slowly connecting the dots. “...You think Elias is really Jonah Magnus. And that he’s planning on turning Jon into his next host body?”

Sasha grinned at her. “Not really? But also, you know, sort of? I like believing it, because it makes the place more interesting.”

“The Library really is weird, though,” Martin said quietly. “And it’s… Yes, we know it’s an old building, it makes noises, and it’s creepy if you’re there late. But occasionally... we’ve all seen people where there shouldn’t be anybody, but if you go check there’s no-one there, that sort of thing.” He gave a little shrug. “I _don’t_ believe Elias is actually the ghost of Jonah Magnus, though. That’s just Sasha.”

“I sometimes believe it,” Tim put in, half-joking but with something a little uneasy under it. “The reason we all figure he hires people who’ve never worked in libraries before is so that we don’t know what’s supposed to happen in one, so we won’t notice if he does anything weird.”

“Like what?”

“Well, that’s just it,” Sasha put in. “We don’t know, do we?”

“He does the rosters.” Tim shrugged. “I’ve talked to other people, at conferences and things, and they all reckon rosters is the worst job and nobody likes it, but Elias flat-out refuses to let anybody else do it. Like, when he was off sick with whooping cough two years ago? Martin, you remember.”

“Yeah,” Martin agreed reluctantly. “He was away for about a month, and Peter Lukas was filling in for him officially. He’s hopeless with computers though, and I wound up doing the rosters for a week or so. I mean, it was tricky, but we don’t have _that_ many staff. Anyway, I was managing, but then as soon as Elias was coherent he was basically running the place by email and he insisted on taking the rosters back.”

“Okay, so he’s a workaholic and also a bit of a control freak,” Melanie muttered. “That doesn't make him an evil ghost. I mean, good to know, that’s going to be fun to work with, but yeah.” She paused, thinking back. “What d’you mean, he’s weird about Jon, though?”

“He checks up on him a lot,” Martin said diffidently. “Elias doesn’t usually leave his office unless he’s got a meeting or something, but since he gave Jon the Local History job, he keeps wandering up there to ‘see how he’s going’. Like, at least twice a day.”

“Right…” Melanie frowned. “So you reckon he’s planning on stealing his body through a spooky occult ritual.”

“Or he just wants to fuck him,” Tim said cheerfully.

Martin choked on his drink.

Melanie rolled her eyes. “Well, good luck to him. Jon’s pretty oblivious.”

“You don’t like the evil ghost theory?” Sasha asked, pouting.

Melanie snorted. “In my experience, if there’s a boring human explanation, it’s usually that. Plus, there’s that incomprehensible thing where people find Jon attractive.”

“Well, he’s way too high-maintenance for me, but he is sort of good-looking,” Tim said thoughtfully. “Not your type?”

“Ha, no.” Melanie said, shaking her head. “I really don’t get it.”

“Probably the eyelashes,” Sasha offered. “He has ridiculously nice eyelashes.”

“Yeah,” Martin said wistfully.

Everyone politely let that slide.

Melanie sighed. “Why do we keep talking about Jon?”

“Because he’s not here,” Tim said cheerfully. “He’s our favourite mystery and we often talk about him on Fridays and also it’s the only time Martin can be dreamy about him without the possibility of Jon walking in on the conversation.”

“But… isn’t he invited?” Melanie asked, confused. 

“Sure, but it’s only half six, and the library's open until eight, so we’re safe.”

“Right. Does he know you talk about him?”

“If he does, he doesn’t mention it. And if he didn’t want us to gossip, he shouldn’t be all mysterious.”

Basira came back with a handful of menus, and they all shuffled around to let her back into the corner. 

There was a brief lull as everyone considered food, then Melanie remembered something. “Oh, can I ask... Who’s Peter Lukas, and is this the same Peter that Elias was having lunch with?” 

“Oh, right.” Basira nodded. “Yeah, that’s Peter Lukas. He’s on the Board of Trustees, Elias deals with them a lot. They have to approve funding for anything new we’re doing.”

“He’s a creep!” Sasha put in cheerfully.

“Also they’re totally shagging,” Tim added.

“Him... and Elias?” Melanie raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that some sort of conflict of interest?”

Tim shrugged. “Probably, but they have a lot of ‘lunch meetings’. I bet he takes Elias out on his yacht on weekends.”

“Wait, how do you know he has a yacht?” Sasha asked, suddenly interested.

“He told Martin all about it.”

“It’s not a yacht,” Martin said, sighing. “It’s a fishing boat. Like, for actual fish. Can you picture Elias going fishing?”

There was a pause. 

“Okay, maybe not the boat thing,” Tim admitted. “But they totally are.”

“Not everyone is fucking, Tim.” Martin snapped. “Maybe they’re just friends.”

“God, I hope not.” Basira muttered. “Elias may be possessed or something but he’s not a total creep.”

Sasha frowned. “Yeah. Maybe Elias is just being polite to him so he can get funding for better spreadsheet software?”

“Maybe Elias is fucking him so he can get better spreadsheet software.” Tim drawled the last two words salaciously, waggling his eyebrows.

Sasha flicked her straw at him. “You keep your filthy mouth away from the spreadsheet software, I have to use that too.”

“Wait.” Melanie nudged Sasha. “So why is this guy a creep?”

“We don’t see him much, but he took over for Elias when Elias was sick two years ago, and he just has this weird vibe.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. They only person he actually dealt with was Martin, and because Martin’s too nice to say no to people he got stuck doing all the actual work.”

“Not all of it,” Martin protested weakly. “Just, all the parts involving computers. To be fair, Elias has really complicated spreadsheets for _everything_.”

“So why didn’t he ask you for help?” Melanie asked, looking at Sasha. 

Sasha grinned. “Because he’s a rich middle-aged white dude? Look. You think we’re joking, but literally the _only person he spoke to_ was Martin. The rest of us got emails or memos, even though we’re just down the hall.” 

Melanie glanced around the table, ending on Martin, who was flushing again under his mop of blonde curls. “Right. Well, at least we know he’s got no say in Elias’s hiring policy, whatever that actually is.”

That got her another round of chuckles, and then they got busy with ordering food and more drinks. Then Tim started quizzing her about random things, and she rolled her eyes but told them her favourite colour (red, even though it looked terrible on her) and her beverage preferences (tea over coffee, but with a weakness for frothy mocha things sometimes). 

They were discussing books when Jon sidled in, dropping down next to Tim with a vague wave at the rest of the table. 

Tim bumped their shoulders together companionably, then turned back to Melanie. 

“Ooh, I know!” He grinned at her. “Favourite Austen novel.”

Melanie rolled her eyes. “Really? You’re just leaning into the stereotypes now, aren’t you?”

“Come on,” Tim wheedled, laughing, “you have to have read at least one…”

Melanie sighed. “I’ve read several. I just don’t have a lot of patience for all the stupid historical dating rules and associated drama. Don’t get me wrong, I know some people really like that sort of thing, but I for one would have gotten so frustrated. I’m just really not the pining type, you know? I like to know where I stand.”

“Sooooo you don’t have a favourite?”

Melanie snorted. “Alright, fine. Northanger Abbey. Because Catherine Morland is a silly chit who reads too many gothic novels, but we’ve all been that teenager and Austen at least is nice about it.”

Jon actually smiled at her approvingly. She scowled. “What?”

“Oh, I’m just appreciating somebody having an opinion on this that doesn’t involve Colin Firth climbing out of a lake.”

Several other people at the table made dreamy noises. Basira leaned across the table to bump fists with Jon. 

Tim sighed. “Look, we like what we like.”

Jon shrugged. “I’m not judging. Romance novels aren’t my favourite genre, so I don’t have much of an opinion either way. But Austen is an excellent writer, and I think it’s a shame that people get distracted from that by,” he waved a hand vaguely.

“Hot guys in wet shirts?” Sasha offered.

“Exactly.” Jon agreed, looking faintly offended.

“Oh, have you guys read that series with popular British authors doing modern adaptations of Austen?” Basira asked. “I picked up the Northanger Abbey one because it was Val McDermid, it was pretty good.”

“That’s the one where she’s into all the teen vampire novels, right?” Melanie asked, and the conversation slid to a debate about the merits of young adult literature, and meandered along from there. 

They were arguing about the philosophical ramifications of superheroes when a stocky, tattooed woman with close-cropped hair stopped next to their table and cleared her throat. 

“Hey, Jude,” Sasha sang, and the woman rolled her eyes. 

“I’m letting that pass because you’re tipsy, and also cute. But we’re closing soon, so take the forum elsewhere.” Then she tipped her head sideways, and blinked at Melanie curiously. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, hi. Melanie King, I just started this week.” Melanie held out a hand, and Jon winced slightly.

Jude shook it, laughing, then let go. “Nice to meet you. Jude Perry, I’ve been here for years. Don’t mind your friend there, he’s kind of a dick and I might have shaken his hand a bit hard.”

Melanie sighed. “We’re not friends, we’re acquaintances. And now colleagues, I guess.”

Jude looked briefly confused, but then shook her head. “Well, whatever you are, time to get out.”

They all tumbled out together, laughing as Sasha told them about one time she’d seen Jude arm-wrestle a biker, making a huge circle with her hands to demonstrate the size of the man’s biceps, and how Jude had let him think he was winning for a minute, then just smirked and slammed his arm into the table so hard he whimpered.

Tim hooked an arm around her waist and steered her towards his car, saying, “Get in, Martin, I’ll drop you off. Jon?”

Jon hesitated, but Tim said, “Come on, you’re on the way anyhow,” and Jon was murmuring a goodnight to Melanie and Basira and going with them.

Basira shrugged. “Just us for the bus stop, then. How are you holding up?”

“So tired,” Melanie groaned. “But thanks for asking me, I’m glad I came.”

Basira laughed. “They’re a good bunch. A bit weird, but I like them.”

“Yeah, me too.” Melanie laughed too, feeling warm and fuzzy and, for once, incredibly hopeful.


	3. Interlude: Sunday 22nd April

“What do you want?” Melanie asked suspiciously, when Georgie turned up on her doorstep carrying a delicious-smelling box marked with the logo of her favourite bakery.

Georgie laughed, pushing the box into Melanie's arms so that Melanie would let her in the door. “It’s not a bribe, stop looking so suspicious! Think of it as more like a ‘Congratulations on surviving your first month!’ celebratory cake.”

Melanie sniffed the box, and then pulled it possessively closer. There were definitely cinnamon scrolls in there. “This is some sort of reward for not tripping Jon down one of the many long flights of stairs, isn’t it?”

Georgie shrugged. “I don’t even have to ring a bell, you’re already salivating.”

“You’re the worst,” Melanie groaned. “I don’t care, I’m eating all of these.”

Georgie pouted theatrically. Melanie rolled her eyes. “I guess you can have one, since you came all this way.”

Georgie’s pout immediately morphed back into a grin. “Thanks. Tell you what, you get stuck into those, I’ll make tea?”

“Okay, you actually do want something.” Melanie followed her into the kitchen, opening the box and immediately taking one of the scrolls. Sticky-sweet pastry flaked as she bit into it and she might have moaned a bit.

Georgie was watching her, Melanie noted absently, and had overfilled the kettle she was holding under the tap. She started when the water ran over her hand, and then laughed, setting the kettle to rights and putting it on to boil.

“Maybe I just wanted to watch you eat them. I should get you to do ads for baked goods on ‘What the Ghost’, I bet nobody would skip past those.” 

Melanie snorted, mouth full of pastry, and hoped her rolled eyes adequately conveyed her disdain for both the idea and the deflection.

Georgie chuckled. “Alright, no, that’s not why. Actually, all I really want is for somebody to tell me all the gossip from that damn library!”

Melanie blinked, swallowing her mouthful enough to say, “What?”

Georgie threw her hands in the air. “Look, I met all the staff last year when I did that podcast talk, but only briefly, and I didn’t exactly get their numbers while I was there. Plus I can’t exactly ask Jon if Martin’s gotten around to confessing his crush, because if he hasn’t, then I’ve gone and put my foot in it properly. So. Eat pastries, tell me everything. Is that okay?”

“Well, I never turn down a bribe, but honestly, you didn’t have to. I would have done that for nothing.”

“I know,” Georgie said, getting up as the kettle started to whistle. “But I wanted to. So, what’s it like?”

Melanie rolled her eyes. “Well, did they tell you half the staff think the place is haunted?”


	4. Part Two: In Which Melanie Discovers a Dark Plot

**Wednesday 26th April**

Melanie cursed as she looked at the transit app on her phone. She’d been late getting out, somebody had ducked in five minutes before closing with a pile of printing that they’d needed _right now_, but she’d just missed her usual bus and the next one wasn’t for half an hour. She glanced around the mostly-empty parking lot, and shivered. There were a few stragglers still getting their things into their cars, and a couple of people were chatting near the doors, but she wasn’t looking forward to waiting in the dark.

The nearest car was a newish looking white sedan, and there was a woman packing an armful of books into the back seat. Melanie glanced over as she closed the door and turned around, and then her face lit up with pleased recognition. It was Helen, and Melanie felt the familiar swoop in her stomach at Helen’s warm smile. 

“Hi Helen,” she managed, smiling back. “Stocking up?”

“Always. I found that mermaid horror book you recommended, thought I’d give it a try.” She laughed ruefully. “And then I found six other things that sounded interesting, and now I have a pile. But I’m going to read the mermaid one first, and I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“I look forward to it,” Melanie said, grinning. “Just maybe don’t read it while you’re eating, I think I warned you it was a bit on the gory side.”

“You did, yes. Don’t worry, I like horror, and I’m not squeamish.”

“Well, feel free to hit me up for more suggestions, horror is my de-stress genre, so I read quite a lot of it.”

“I might do that, actually.” Helen started to say something, then waited as a car next to them started noisily. She glanced over at the car as it headed off, then paused, looking around the nearly-deserted parking lot. There was a slight frown creasing her forehead as she turned back to Melanie. “I- Sorry. Maybe it’s none of my business, but… Are you waiting for a lift?”

Melanie shrugged. “A bus, actually. I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

Helen chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “Are you sure? Can I at least drop you somewhere a bit more populated?”

Melanie weighed that for a moment, and came down pretty heavily on the side of trusting Helen. “Well, if it’s not too much of a hassle? Because that would be brilliant.”

Helen gave a relieved smile. “Oh good. I wasn’t looking forward to finding out I was the last person to see you alive, you know?”

Melanie laughed. “This is what I get for recommending horror stories, I suppose. If you can drop me at the pub up the road, there’s a bus stop right next to it, and I can grab something to eat while I’m waiting.”

“No problem.” Helen nodded to the passenger side door. “Hop in.”

It was less than ten minutes’ drive to the Lightless Flame and once they passed the Library’s gates the streets were well lit and quite busy.

Melanie sighed, stretching her shoulders. “God, I’m starving. And thanks so much for doing this, I’d just missed a bus so I was going to be waiting for nearly half an hour.”

“Really?” Helen sounded horrified. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the Library, but it is very isolated. Shouldn’t the staff wait together?”

“We do normally, but we were running late and the other staff member had somewhere to be, so I told him I could finish locking up.”

“And he just left?” Helen sounded scandalised. 

Melanie snorted. “Have you met Lionel? If something attacked us, _I_ would have had to save _him_, not the other way around.”

Helen hesitated. “Oh, dear. Is he the nervous one who wears the t-shirts with science jokes on them?”

“Yes.”

Helen paused. “Well, I suppose you could always trip him in front of the monster.”

Melanie cackled. “Oh, I see how it is. Horror fan, huh?”

Helen shrugged, a faint smirk curling at the edges of her mouth. “I’m just very practical. No use both of you dying, after all.”

“Fair point,” Melanie agreed, “Oh, if you turn in there, there's parking behind the pub. The streets are a bit awkward here.”

“Oh, thanks.” Helen followed her directions, and pulled into one of the spaces. 

Then they stared at each other awkwardly for a moment. 

“Thanks again for the lift, “ Melanie said at last, opening the door. Fresh air rushed in, smelling like hot chips and steak. 

Helen’s stomach rumbled audibly, and she blushed. “Ah, excuse me. I took longer at the library than I expected, and I haven’t had dinner yet.”

Melanie did her level best to sound casual as she said, “Well, you’re welcome to join me. The food’s pretty good.”

Helen hesitated. “I don’t want to… impose. You’ve been very friendly, but I know it’s your job to be nice, and if you’d rather not be bothered now that you’re not working, I won’t be offended.”

Melanie blinked. “So… Was that an ‘I’d like to have dinner with you, but not if you only offered because you’re still in customer service mode’? Because if it was, I’d tell you that I like talking to you, and I was hoping we could try talking about something that isn’t work-related, and see where that goes.”

Helen went very still. “Oh. Are you… asking me to dinner?”

Melanie brushed a hand through her hair, shifting a little on her feet. “I’m asking you to have a conversation over some food and see what I’m like when I’m not at work. Not a date, but with an option on maybe asking you on an actual date if you’d be into that?”

Helen blinked, processing that, and then she smiled, a slow, slightly-crooked smile with a dimple at the left corner of her mouth. Melanie could feel her cheeks warm a little, and then Helen said “I’d like that. Dinner, and keeping our options open. “

Melanie had been to the Lightless Flame every Friday night since she started at the Magnus Library, so she was happy to offer suggestions on the menu, and after a few false starts, they went back to talking about books, and Helen talked a bit more about her job at a nearby real estate firm with the slightly odd name of Distorted Realty. It was her boss’s idea of a joke, Helen explained with a shrug. 

She also said that he was a bit weird, although Melanie thought privately that since none of the staff had ever accused him of being possessed, he was probably fine. 

From there they rambled about travel, and their food came, and they finished it while Helen was talking about a trip she’d taken to Europe that made her voice go soft and wistful. Jude wandered over a few minutes later and asked if they were thinking about dessert, and Melanie realised they’d been there for almost two hours. 

Helen looked equally startled, so Melanie thanked Jude but said they were done. Jude gave her a friendly smirk as they settled up, raising an appreciative eyebrow in Helen’s direction. Melanie narrowed her eyes at her, and took her change. 

Jude laughed, and said, “Have a good night, love. I’ll see you Friday!”

“What’s on Friday?” Helen asked, opening the door for her, then paused. “If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”

Melanie shook her head, stepping through. “Some of the library staff have dinner here of a Friday. It’s a great place.”

“You know,” Helen said as she followed her out, “I’ve been coming to the Magnus Library for years, and I must have passed this place every time, but I’ve never eaten here? Thank you for giving me a reason.”

Melanie shrugged. “Consider it fair trade for the lift.” Then she smiled up at Helen as they reached her car. “Thank you for keeping me company, I had a really good time.”

Helen smiled back, and she was blushing slightly. “So did I! And, well.” She took a breath. “I- still like talking to you, even when you aren’t being paid to smile and fix my computer problems for me. And. I just.”

Melanie frowned. “Look, the date thing was an offer, but it isn’t either/or. If you’re not interested in a date, I would love to see you again in a strictly-friends way. Alright?”

Helen blew out a breath. “I- I’m sorry. It’s not that I’m not interested, I just… I haven’t dated in a while. So… I know there’s that joke about lesbians bringing a moving truck to the third date, but I might need to take things very slowly. Would that be alright?”

Melanie relaxed. “Oh! No, absolutely, I know I can be a bit… impatient, but I’m trying to be better about that. Just, let me know if I’m going too fast, alright? I promise not to move in with you without asking first.”

That got her a laugh, those adorable dimples showing again as Helen ducked her head a little. “Alright. Well, in that case. Yes. Yes, I’d love to go on a date with you.”

They just sort of smiled at each other stupidly for a moment, and then Helen shook herself. “Right, sorry, you probably need to get home. Would you like me to…”

Melanie shook her head. “Oh, no, I can get the bus from here, there should be another one in…” she checked her phone, “Seven minutes! There’s a stop right by my place, so I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I suppose that’s goodnight?”

They stared at each other for a moment longer, then Melanie gave a little wave. “Goodnight, Helen. Thanks for a lovely time!” and turned to walk away. Then she stopped again, realising that she didn’t actually have Helen’s number or anything, and turned back just as Helen caught her sleeve, saying, “Oh, we should probably-“

“Exchange numbers,” Melanie finished, shaking her head while she fished out her phone, “so we can organise that date?”

Helen laughed sheepishly. “Yes, exactly. Oh, dear, I really am terrible at this.”

Melanie smiled back at her. “Hey, I’m clearly not doing any better.” She accepted Helen’s phone in exchange for hers, and put her number in as ‘Melanie King <3’ because she could.

Helen blushed a little more when she took her phone back, and then they looked at each other again. 

“Right,” Melanie said firmly. “I’m actually going now. So. Goodnight.”

Helen fidgeted with her phone and nodded. “Alright. Have a safe trip, and I’ll see you soon.”

Melanie managed to turn away, and if there was a jaunty little sway to her hips as she walked away, well. She hoped it was appreciated.

**Thursday 27th April**

Melanie was quite sure that she was neither giddy nor glowing the next day, but several people told her that she looked nice, and Rosie asked if she’d done something different with her hair. 

“No,” Melanie said blankly, and Rosie shrugged. “It looks nice, anyway. Suits you.”

Melanie patted her hair self-consciously as Rosie swished off to the tea room, and Tim, sitting at his desk, made an amused noise without turning around. “You haven't changed your hair. You’re _smiling_.”

Melanie glared at him. “What are you saying? I smile.”

He spun his chair and grinned at her. “Not like that you don’t. What happened? Have a good night?”

“Yes,” she gritted out.

“Annnnd?” he coaxed. “Who with? What did you do?”

Melanie folded her arms. “None of your business.”

He sighed. “Honestly, you’re as bad as Jon.”

Melanie bristled. “Look, just because I don’t want to go around announcing all the details of my personal life- It’s new, alright? I’ll talk about it when I’m ready.”

Tim raised his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m only teasing. Sorry. And… good luck with your new thing! I like the smile, I hope it sticks around.”

Melanie huffed, but she relaxed. And after a moment, she said gruffly, “Thanks. Didn’t mean to snap at you.”

He waved a hand. “I was being pushy. I’d rather you pushed back than let me make you uncomfortable. Are we okay?”

She nodded, then gave him a sharp grin. “Don’t worry, I’ll definitely push back if I need to.”

**Saturday 6th May**

Melanie waffled for a while trying to dress for her first date with Helen. She went back and forth wondering how dressed up she should aim to be, and eventually settled on black slacks and a green shirt that did good things for her cleavage and brought out her eyes. 

She was incredibly glad she’d made the effort when Helen turned up in a slinky black wrap dress that her look both stylish and very touchable. There were little swirling patterns in the soft matte fabric that caught the light as Helen moved. Her hair was down, falling in loose curls all around her face, and Melanie had to close her mouth and swallow hard as Helen recognised her and came over. 

Melanie hesitated a moment, and then offered her arm with a smile. Helen took it, and sort of leaned into her as they headed into the restaurant. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself,” Melanie murmured. “You look incredible, by the way.”

Helen blushed immediately. “I- Thank you. So do you.”

After they’d ordered, and the waitperson had left with their menus, Melanie had the sudden, awful realisation that she hadn't been on a proper date in years. 

She looked up and found Helen staring at her anxiously. “What do people even do on dates? I have definitely forgotten how this works.”

Melanie laughed. “I was just thinking the same thing! I don’t know, I suppose we talk? We seem to do alright at that. And personally, I think you’re doing great so far.”

Helen smiled back sheepishly, “Oh, well. I’m glad to hear it. I haven’t been on a date in…” she paused, going very still. “God, more than fifteen years. I-“ she broke off, looking pained. “This is… probably too much for a first date, but-“ She took a breath, held it, biting her lower lip hard.

Melanie reached across the table and took her hand gently. 

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. I already said I had no problems with taking things slowly, okay?

Helen nodded. “It’s just… still a little difficult to talk about. But, I feel like I should tell you. My partner died, four years ago. We’d been together for twelve years.” 

Melanie’s eyes widened. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Helen-“

Helen looked down at their joined hands, and curled her fingers around Melanie’s a little tighter. “Thank you. It, it took me a long time to come to terms with her loss, but I have. I just thought I ought to warn you in advance, that this is my first time dating since then, and despite several years of therapy I can’t really gauge how it’s going to go.”

Melanie sighed. “Well, this is the first time I’ve dated since I went to therapy, too, so. I had anger management issues and occasionally punched people.”

Helen blinked. “Oh! Really? You don’t seem the violent type…”

Melanie raised an eyebrow. “And what type do I seem?”

Helen coloured slightly. “Well, so far you’ve been very sweet, and you’re, ah.”

Melanie rolled her eyes, but she was blushing. “Quite short?”

Helen laughed. “I was going to say pretty, if that’s not too condescending.”

“Not in the least. Also you’ve never seen me lose my temper, _that’s_ not pretty. But I’m a lot better about it these days. And- Look, I’m declaring right now that we’re friends. So if you decide you’re not ready for dating after all, I’m still going to make you join my queer ladies’ film appreciation society, so we can all drink wine and watch lesbian romances and cry when they _don’t_ die at the end. Alright? I’m not going to stop liking you, I promise.”

“O-oh. That’s. Alright, I’ll keep that in mind.” Helen’s smile was soft and a little wondering, and Melanie tried valiantly not to go red right to her ears. She cleared her throat after a moment, and took her hand back so she could have a drink of water. 

“So, have you read any good books lately?”

Helen laughed. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about work?”

Then she paused, and chewed on her lip for a moment. “Actually, on the subject of work, can I ask you a question? It’s about one of your colleagues, so I’ll understand if you don’t want to tell me anything.”

“Well, ask away and I’ll see.”

“Right it’s just. Uh, Jon? He’s one of the librarians, I think he’s works in local studies these days, but that’s pretty recent.”

Melanie sighed. “I know him. What did you want to know?” She paused. “Fair warning, if you’re going to ask if he’s single I may be a bit put out.” 

Helen’s eyebrows rose. “I really hope that was a joke.”

Melanie blinked. “I thought so? Sorry, I’ve known Jon for years, but he hates talking about himself so ever since I started working at the library all the other staff keep asking _me_ questions about him, like I’m some sort of expert. I’m not, by the way, but hit me, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Helen hesitated for a moment, but then said, “It’s a bit… a couple of years ago, I had to stop working for a while. Health reasons.” She waved a hand vaguely, and Melanie nodded, so she went on, “I spent a lot of time at the library while I was recovering, and then when I was getting myself back to work, and I talked to Jon quite a bit. Books, mostly, and then he showed me all that job-seeker stuff you have? Anyway, I thought we were on reasonably friendly terms.” 

Melanie raised an eyebrow. 

Helen sighed. “_Not_ my type, but he has this way of giving you his full attention as though what you’re saying is important and he’s really listening. I was having a bit of a rough time for a while so it was really nice, and as I said, I thought we were friendly? Or at least that I was the sort of customer you were happy to see. But after I got the job at Distorted Realty, I was dropping some books off and I thought I’d say hi, let him know I’d gotten hired and thank him for all his help.”

“And it was fine, he congratulated me and everything, but then he sort of… I don’t know. Partway through the conversation he went really quiet and then he made excuses and left and I haven’t spoken to him since. As in, he actively avoids me if he sees me walk in. I think I must have said something to upset him, but for the life of me I can’t think what? It’s just… I don’t know, it really bothered me.”

Melanie frowned. “Well, first off, it’s probably not you. Jon is weird, that is an objective fact. He covers it okay most of the time, but I’ve known him a while.”

Helen raised an eyebrow, her mouth twitching, and Melanie nodded sagely. “I know I said I wasn’t an expert, but on this you may take my word as absolute truth. I could tell you some things.”

Helen gave a soft giggle, which was delightful, and probably why Melanie followed this up with, “But I can ask him, if you’d like? I doubt you would have accidentally insulted his mother or something, but I’ll check.”

“I- Thanks. I mean, it’s not… that big a deal, but I just-”

“Hey, it’s cool. I know how annoying it is when people suddenly take against you for no apparent reason. ...Admittedly that’s mostly secondhand experience, when people take exception to me it’s usually because I’ve insulted them to their face about their crappy sound editing or whatever or… well. I’m not always the most tactful person.”

Helen tried to stifle more giggles. “I’m sure you’re not that bad.”

“I try not to be, but people not doing their jobs is annoying, and people not doing their jobs because they’re too busy smoking prohibited substances is really annoying.”

Helen actually snorted at that, and said, “Alright, you can’t say that and then not tell me the rest of it.”

Melanie grinned. “Well, if you insist…”

**Monday 8th May**

Melanie made herself a cup of tea around eleven, and then took the stairs up to the attic and wandered through the shelves until she found Jon, elbow deep in a box of files as usual. She made sure to shuffle her feet and clear her throat a few times as she got closer, and for once he didn’t actually jump when she spoke to him. 

“Hey, Jon. Can I ask you something?”

Jon eyed her warily. “I suppose? I make no promises about answering.”

“Do you know a woman named Helen, Helen Richardson? She comes in sometimes to borrow books and-“ She paused. Jon had gone very still, and his fingers were clinging to the edge of his box, so hard his knuckles were turning white. “Right. So, what’s that about, then?”

He swallowed. “It’s uh. What’s what about?”

Melanie glared at him. “Don’t you dare pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. The part where you suddenly remember an urgent errand on a different floor whenever she comes into the building. That.”

“I really don’t see what business it is of yours,” Jon said stiffly.

“Well, maybe it isn’t. But it’s bothering Helen enough that she brought it up over dinner, so I thought I’d at least try to get your side of it before I wrote it off as ‘Jonathan Sims being an asshole’.”

Jon’s eyes widened, and he actually looked panicked. “I- You. Dinner? Why are you having dinner with her? Why was she asking about me?”

“I’m having dinner with her because I like her, and I asked, and she said yes.” Melanie scowled at him. “We do not spend any of our time talking about you, except she mentioned you avoiding her and she thinks she’s offended you somehow. So. What was it?”

“I. It’s not. I mean-“ Jon flailed for a moment. ”Ah, she didn’t?”

Melanie glared at him, unimpressed. 

After a moment, he went on awkwardly, “I… It’s not her, specifically. It’s who she works for? And I’m not sure if she’s- Sorry.”

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, and Melanie realised that his hands were shaking slightly, her irritation shifting to make way for actual concern.

“Jon?” she asked. “Are you alright? What the hell is going on?”

He put his glasses back on, then just stared at her for a moment, a creepily intense look on his face. “You never met Gertrude, did you?”

“Gertrude as in Gertrude-whose-job-you-now-have? No. Why would I have? I don’t come to this library.”

“Right. That’s… that’s good. I-“ His mouth twisted. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“I already think you're crazy,” Melanie shot back, folding her arms.

That startled a laugh out of him, and he actually relaxed a bit, which only made it obvious how tense he’d been. “Right. Can I- Are you busy after work today?”

Melanie’s eyes narrowed. “No. Why?”

“I’d… like your opinion on something. But I don’t want to talk about it at work.”

“Riiight.” Melanie continued to eye him suspiciously. “Look, I’m willing to indulge your paranoia to a certain extent, but I’m not agreeing to meet you under the blasted oak at midnight, or anything.”

“Erm. I was… just going to give you my address? And ask how you feel about quiche?”

“Quiche is… fine. And I guess bribing me with food is a better approach. But I’m telling Georgie so if somebody winds up dead she’ll know you invited me over.”

He licked his lips nervously. “I’m concerned that you aren’t specifying which of us is getting murdered here.”

Melanie gave him a dismissive once-over and raised an eyebrow.

He twitched. “Point taken.” 

Neither of them mentioned it, but Melanie was abruptly thinking of That Night when Jon and Georgie had stopped her beating a man to death, and she was pretty sure Jon was too. 

Then Jon cleared his throat. “Well, if you feel you need a safety net to meet with me, I’m hardly going to object. So, is seven alright with you?”

She nodded. “Sure. Uh, where-“ She went to get out her phone, but Jon just wrote an address on a post-it note and handed it to her, with a quiet, “Thank you.”

Melanie snorted. “Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t actually heard whatever it is, and right now you’re on a par with that old guy who tried to convince me that vampires are real and the cops are just covering the whole thing up.”

“Oh, you’ve met Trevor?” Jon waved a hand vaguely. “Don’t worry, he’s a bit colourful but he’s relatively harmless. He’s assured me that the Library doesn’t have any vampires on staff.”

“Oh, good.” Melanie shook her head. “One less thing to worry about, I suppose. I’m going to go now, and I guess I’ll see you later.”

She headed back downstairs, doing her best to put whatever it was out of her mind for now. No good speculating about whatever weird nonsense Jon was involved in.

  


_I’m going to Jon’s place for dinner_  
_Neither of us intends violence_  
_But if any happens it’s definitely his fault_

_Glad to hear the two of you are getting along  
:)_

Melanie scowled at her phone as she stood outside Jon’s building, and then shook herself and rang the buzzer. She took the stairs rather than the lift, just to burn off the nervous energy, and then knocked at his door. 

Jon opened it immediately, looking tense, and sort of waved her in.

“Hi, Jon. How are you? I’m fine, thanks for asking.” Melanie muttered as she went in.

Jon shut the door behind her and she heard the deadbolt snick into place.

She turned to give him a dubious look, as he put the chain on as well. “Uh-“

“Sorry,” he said quietly, “I- Thanks for coming over. I… made quiche?”

“Uh, yeah. Should I try that again?”

“What?” He hesitated, blinking at her.

“How are you?” Melanie repeated, more firmly.

“Uh, I’m fine.” Jon shrugged. “I’ve just- I’ve been a bit on edge lately.”

They stared at each other for a moment, then Jon said abruptly, “Look, why don’t you sit down, I’ve got the stuff I wanted you to look at, and I can- Would you like a drink?”

“Sure. Water’s fine, what-“

She blinked as he pointed. There was a neat stack of papers on his coffee table. “Ooookay. And what is this that I’m looking at?”

“If you could just… take a look. I’d like to know what you think, without me prejudicing your conclusions.”

“Yeah, sure.” She drifted over to the table and picked up a few sheets, glancing over it and then sitting down to read more closely. It was a series of bullet-point notes about what phase of the moon would be best suited to ‘the transfer’. 

She blinked a few times, then put that down and picked up another one. This was a hand-drawn map of a series of tunnels. There were weird symbols drawn on some of the rooms, and a line across one of the tunnels was marked ‘hidden door’. That one was with three other pages showing detailed but also hand-drawn floor plans of each of the levels of the Magnus library. 

Melanie felt all the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Shifting between the pages, she saw that the stairs leading up from the tunnels would connect to the basement storage door she’d seen on the ground floor. The one Elias had said was locked because nobody went in there. 

She set that aside and picked up some more pages. These had diagrams as well, more of those symbols she didn’t recognise, and notes about how many people would be needed for the ritual, and how to align them with the cardinal points.

Another one discussed the ley line which ran under the library, and linked back to the moon phases, followed by a three-page… essay, really, on how Smirke’s architecture designed the building to harmonise with the energy from said ley line.

“Jon… Jon, what the hell is this?” She leafed through the pages quickly. There was more of this, some discussion of the kind of metaphysics she was familiar with from some of the weirder corners of the ghost-hunting world, and a list of people. She recognised some of the names: Jonah Magnus, obviously, but also Mordechai Lukas, Albrecht Von Closen, Jonathan Fanshawe, and Robert Smirke. 

Tim was probably going to be upset, she thought absently, because it definitely sounded like Smirke was in a cult. 

There was a separate bundle of printed-out emails from several different people. They were all ordinary webmail accounts, with addresses like _keayofwisdom_ and _enleitenedone87_.

Melanie flicked through, but they just seemed to be accepting some sort of invitation, and a couple of them said they were looking forward to ‘starting’ though they didn’t say what. And thanking Gertrude for hosting. Mostly they were informal, although there was one that was addressed to ‘Mistress Gertrude, Guide to the Shadowed Realms’. That was _EnleitenedOne87_, who seemed like a pretentious git. 

And one of them just started with ‘Gertrude’ and went on to make vaguely threatening mention of her ‘interfering with other people’s business’ and how the writer had thought that they were friends and didn’t take too kindly to that sort of thing. It was just signed ‘M.S.’ and the email address was _distortion720@gmail.com_ so that was no help.

“Jon?” She looked up again, and he was sort of hovering in the doorway to the kitchen, [holding a couple of plates](https://antiquecipher.tumblr.com/post/186943921906/my-rustyquill-big-bang-pilesofnonsense-art). “Seriously, what is all this?”

“Uh, the quiche is ready. I… I found that in amongst some of Gertrude’s things that she’d left in a filing cabinet in the back of the Local Studies storage area. I checked, and the handwritten parts are definitely her writing. As to what it is… What do you think?”

“I… I think somebody has been listening to one too many ghost stories, and decided to do something stupid? Are you actually buying this?”

He set two plates of quiche on the table, then ducked back into the kitchen for cutlery and glasses of water. Then he sat down on the sofa next to her, rubbed at his face, and said, “I think… I don’t know if I actually believe any of the, the _magic_ stuff? But I think some people do, and I just-“

He swallowed hard. Melanie frowned at him. “Okay, spit it out. What happened?”

“After… after Gertrude left, I’d been sorting out things in the attic and a man came in. Tall, long blonde hair, I didn’t know him. He said he was a friend of Gertrude’s, and that she’d left rather suddenly and wasn’t answering her email. He asked if I had her contact information.” Jon shrugged. 

“Obviously I said no, we never give out personal information about staff, that’s standard. I said if he wanted to leave _his_ contact information, I could see about passing it on and asking her to get in touch with him, and he got very angry. Said that she couldn’t just ‘leave us in the dark like this’ and he actually grabbed my arm and I sort of tripped over trying to get away and fell into one of the display stands, and it made a terrible crash, and he left.”

“I suppose he thought somebody would probably come up to investigate the noise. Nobody did, of course, the walls are all quite thick, you could murder somebody up there and no-one would even notice.” Jon gave a shaky little laugh, but his fingers were knotted together, his knuckles going white. 

“So, what did you do?” Melanie asked carefully. 

“Well, I went to see Elias, told him everything. He checked all the security cameras, and he could see the man coming in and going out, but where we were in the attic there weren’t any so there was nothing to show him assaulting me. Elias said we could let the police know anyway, but I didn’t think… well, I assumed if it was about Gertrude, that would be the last we’d hear of it. We both filled out some paperwork, and then a couple of days later Elias came to see me with a photograph, of Gertrude and some of her volunteers. And, well,” Jon waved a hand, “one of them was definitely the same man. “

“Elias said his name was Michael Shelley, and that he had quit volunteering a few months before Gertrude retired. He also said he couldn’t do much about it if I wasn’t willing to involve the authorities, but he did ban him from the library. So he did.” Jon shrugged. “The letter informed Michael Shelley that he was banned for ‘inappropriate conduct towards library employees’ and we didn’t get a confused letter back demanding to know what was going on, so I assumed that that must be the right person. And.. I did a bit of digging on him. Or, well, I just googled him, actually and it turns out he owns Distorted Realty, which is a real estate agency a few blocks away, which is-“

“Where Helen works,” Melanie said slowly.

Jon’s shoulders hunched. “Yes. I know I’m probably just being paranoid, and I should apologise to Helen, but… I’ve seen him outside the library, at least a dozen times. And sometimes I think things in the attic have moved, even though nobody really goes up there but me, and I’m not sure if it’s true or if it’s just my mind playing tricks on me. He hasn’t come back _in_ since Elias banned him, but he hasn’t exactly gone away, either, and... Well, when Helen talked to me I may have jumped to the conclusion that Michael had sent her in to get information. I… even at the time I sort of knew I was overreacting? But it isn’t that easy to stop.”

Melanie eyed him thoughtfully. He’d probably just get defensive if she mentioned it now, but she might print out the information for that counselling service Elias said staff were entitled to and leave it in his intray at work. They might not be exactly friends, but he definitely hadn’t been _this_ high-strung when he was seeing Georgie. 

That might have been Georgie, though; one of the reasons she and Melanie were still such good friends was that Georgie was so relentlessly calm that she had a steadying influence on Melanie. Also she had a fantastic sense of humour, and was one of the few people Melanie had met in the ghost-hunting business who didn’t take themselves too seriously.

Then Melanie he had a horrible thought. “Jon. Did I join a cult?”

“I…. I really hope not?”

“That’s not a no. You were supposed to say no, Jon!”

Jon winced. “I’m sorry, alright? To be honest, I was hoping you were going to tell me I was being a lunatic and that Gertrude was just making notes for the fantasy novel she was secretly writing in her spare time.”

Melanie opened her mouth, closed it again, thought about it, and then shook her head. “Almost plausible? But people don’t generally meet up with their friends to do rituals out of their fantasy novel in a library basement, do they?” She scrubbed a hand through her hair. “You know, I just wanted a normal job. Pay the bills, nice steady hours, no more ghosts. And what do I get?”

“It’s hardly my fault,” Jon snapped back at her. “It’s not as though you asked me for recommendations, so I could tell you that the pay is decent but half the staff might belong to a cult!”

Melanie made a startled noise. “You think the other staff are in on it?”

“I don’t know!” Jon leaned forward, his voice rising. “Tim and Gertrude always got along really well, I’m not sure why. I _know_ Sasha is still in touch with Adelard, the previous systems librarian, and he and Gertrude were, what do they call it? Work spouses? And Martin has been here for longer than either of them, and he keeps staring at me when he thinks I’m not looking!” 

He sank back against the sofa. “I don't know about Basira, she hasn't been here that long and I really don’t think she’s the type, but if I talk to her she’ll probably get Daisy involved and I’m still not sure if I actually believe it? Certainly not enough to tell Daisy, if you know what I mean.”

Melanie thought back to the first time she’d met Daisy, which had involved walking out into the car park to find a police cruiser parked there and a short, muscular woman with a blonde undercut talking to Basira. Basira had pointed at Melanie, and the other woman had turned and stared right at her, and Melanie had spent the longest thirty seconds of her life trying to remember if she’d done anything criminal lately before the blonde woman laughed, a pleasantly husky sound, and said ‘Quit panicking, new girl. I’m Daisy, good to meet you.’

No, she thought slowly, she wouldn’t go to Daisy with a vague pile of suspicions either.

“The trouble is,” Jon was saying, “I don’t know how to get anything concrete to go on. I’ve tried finding out who the other people are, but all I have are email addresses that are clearly pseudonyms, except for the one with initials at the bottom, but I thought that might be…”

Melanie flicked back through the pages, and frowned. “M. S. Oh! You think that’s Michael Shelley, right?”

“Yes. I’ve looked at the others, and I had a word with one of the assistants, a young lady named Tessa, but she said if it’s a web-based email, which they all are, anything you could do to get information about the owners is illegal. And I’m not that desperate.”

There was an unspoken ‘yet’ there that Melanie didn’t like, but also...

“This is why people think you’re twice my age, you know that, right? I mean, the grey hair and the bloody waistcoats don’t help, but you just called Tessa, who I’m pretty sure is an actual hacker, a ‘young lady’.” She mimicked his accent, her lip curling. 

Jon huffed. “She’s younger than me and uses female pronouns. What else am I supposed to call her? Besides, I don’t care if people think I’m older. Most of my patrons are retirees, it makes them feel more comfortable. They’re a bit wary of ‘young people’ and I think a lot of them sort of resent having to ask their grandkids for help setting up their new smartphones.”

Melanie snorted. “God, you’re hopeless. It’s like you’ve just given up entirely. Have you even tried dating anyone since you and Georgie broke up? Or did you just decide that was it, you had a go and it didn’t work out, might as well get ten cats now and save yourself the trouble.”

Jon glared at her. “What the hell are you on about? Who, who asked your bloody opinion on my personal life? And I _have_ dated other people besides Georgie, not that it’s any of your business. Like you can talk anyway, when’s the last time _you_ had a relationship that didn’t end in a screaming match?

Melanie clenched her fists, feeling hot rage swell through her, and saw Jon’s eyes widen in the beginnings of panic. For a moment, just a moment, she enjoyed that, that she could make him afraid of her. Then she shut her eyes, relaxed her hands, and carefully worked her way through a breathing exercise. 

When she opened them again, Jon was gone, but she no longer felt the urge to hit him in his stupid face until he stopped looking at her. 

He shuffled back in from the kitchen a minute later, carrying two cups of tea, and put them on the table. Then he sat back down and folded his hands in his lap, looking at her anxiously. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to- I’ve been a bit stressed lately, and I don’t always know when to stop pushing.”

“And we both respond very badly to criticism,” Melanie bit out. “And… I’m sorry too. Georgie told me once that the reason we always argue is that we have all the wrong things in common.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Was it in that tone? You know the one, she uses it when she knows you don’t want to hear it but she’s going to tell you anyway.”

“Yeah.” Melanie groaned. “And she’s always right, too. I don’t… I don't know, we do have a habit of rubbing each other the wrong way.”

Jon gave a little shrug, a wry self-deprecating smile. “Well, you wouldn’t have been the first person to punch me in the face because I managed to ask just the right question. Sort of got a knack for it, really. Very useful for reference enquiries, awful for arguments. I don’t always… I like figuring things out, and I sometimes forget that there’s a real person with actual feelings involved. I’ve been told it’s creepy. Georgie would just point out that I was being an insensitive arse and tell me to back off. I think it’s why she managed to put up with me for as long as she did.”

Melanie nodded, breathed for a moment, and then said carefully, “I wound up going to therapy for a while, after Ghost Hunt broke up, and... Well. You might remember that time I put that guy in the hospital, after he recognised me from that damned viral video and called me a freak? So, yeah. Anger management, mostly. It helped.”

“Oh, I’m glad!” 

He smiled at her, and she eyed him suspiciously. 

“No, I mean it.” He shifted awkwardly. “You were... _slightly_ terrifying, I’ll admit, but you also seemed… incredibly stressed and miserable towards the end, and Georgie was really worried about you.”

“Yeah, she was.” Melanie sighed. “Georgie is… I burned a lot of bridges, back then, just taking it out on people. But Georgie stuck around, and even when it got really bad she never…” Melanie waved a hand, trying to find the words. “She was… she was never scared of me, you know?”

Jon nodded. “I know what you mean.”

Melanie sipped her tea. It was liquorice, which she’d always liked back when she’d had to give up caffeine because she had ulcers, and since Jon had made himself… she sniffed… chamomile, that meant he’d actually bothered to remember. Mollified, she leaned back against the sofa and cradled the cup in her hands, letting the warmth centre her. “Georgie is too good for us,” she murmured.

Jon nodded pensively, picking up his own tea. 

They both sat in silence for a long moment.

Then Jon shook himself. “Sorry, I didn’t actually ask you over to talk about our… personal lives.”

“Well, you sort of did,” Melanie corrected. “Although looking at this I’m really not sure Helen is involved.”

Jon’s eyebrows drew together. “She works for Michael, and she was asking you about me. You don’t think that’s a little bit suspicious?”

“Look, Helen just seemed genuinely confused. I don’t think she was fishing for information for a weird cult, I think she was wondering what the hell she’d done to make you hide in the attic every time she walked into the building.”

Jon’s mouth twisted. “I- That- Maybe. Have you considered that you might be biased on the subject?”

“Sure.” Melanie shrugged. “Have you?”

“About… Helen?” Jon blinked at her. “I wasn’t- That is to say, I might have considered us _friendly_, but we weren’t-”

Melanie rolled her eyes. And didn’t say anything about their similar taste in women, because… not going there. “Not Helen. Your Gerry, the volunteer. Didn’t he say his mum was friends with Gertrude?”

Jon shrugged awkwardly. “Well. Yes. But I don't think he’s…”

Melanie narrowed her eyes. “When did he start showing up, hmm? Before or after you refused to tell Michael anything?”

“Oh,” Jon said faintly, looking shaken. “Well. After. But I didn’t- I- don’t-” He made a sort of hiccuping noise and curled in on himself, trembling, gripping his own elbows tightly. 

“Jon? Hey, what’s-” Melanie tugged at one of his hands. “Jon!” He stared at her blankly, and his skin felt clammy to the touch. “Hey!” She shook him a little, got him to make eye contact. “Come on, Jon, just- Here, breathe with me.” She took a deliberate breath. “In. And out. In. And out. In. And out.”

Gradually, he managed to match her breathing, and she slowed it until they were taking normal, steady breaths. 

When she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to pass out on her, she said sharply, “Okay. What the hell, Jon?”

“I just…” He coughed, hoarsely, took a sip of his water with unsteady hands. “Sorry, I don’t usually- I… was just. Thinking. I- I left the building with him, I’ve gotten in his car, he could have-“ His voice cracked. “I don’t know, Melanie!”

Melanie realised she’d been mostly treating this as an intellectual exercise, like assessing a ghost story for filming, which meant to allow herself to consider the possibility while remaining detached. Jon, though? Jon was genuinely terrified. Enough that he was actually asking her for help. And… he really didn’t seem to have anyone else to ask, which was… Well.

Melanie nodded decisively. “Right. Let’s think this through.” She picked up her plate of quiche and a fork, taking a bite. 

She blinked for a moment; it was actually good, even though they'd let it go completely cold. Then she shook herself, swallowed, and looked up at Jon. He’d taken his own fork and started eating, but he stared at her expectantly, so she started. “Well, you’ve left him alone in the Local Studies section often enough that he could have gone through all Gertrude’s papers if he wanted to, right?”

Jon nodded, mouth full.

“Okay, but you said things had been disturbed out of hours, right? He wouldn’t have needed to break in, and he would have known to put things back the way he found them.”

“Ah. Good point.” Jon looked a bit less distressed, to Melanie’s relief.

“And, as you pointed out, he’s had opportunities to kidnap you if he was planning on it.”

Jon’s answering, “Right,” was a little shaky, but he didn’t start panicking again, so Melanie figured they were okay.

“Plus, you know. He seems to actually like you.”

Jon choked slightly and had a drink of water hurriedly, flushing.

Melanie smirked at him. “Which in my book is points in the ‘evil cultist’ column, but hey.”

“O-oh. Well.” Jon cleared his throat. “Ah. I mean. Do you think so?”

Melanie rolled her eyes. “_Yes_. He likes you. He wants to spend time arguing with you about which dead person owned a house three hundred years ago and then take you to lunch. Those are facts, he has done those things. I refuse to speculate any further, because you’re adults and you can just talk to each other. Also I don’t _actually_ think he’s an evil cultist, but maybe you could ask him about Gertrude? Since he seemed to know her fairly well, or at least know of her.”

“He said she came to his mother’s funeral,” Jon said quietly.

“Ah.” Melanie paused. “I suppose they must have been close, then?”

“Probably. I mean, Mary did ask him to donate all her papers to the Library.”

“Well.” Melanie shrugged. “Even if she was involved in something with Gertrude, maybe he had no idea, and she didn’t want him involved? So she asked him to give all her stuff back to Gertrude, but then Gertrude retired? I don’t know.”

“But that’s just it, it isn’t any of _this_ kind of stuff. It’s just family history research. Mary was trying to back up something she’d found in an old letter from her great-grandmother that made her think she was a descendant of the von Closen family, by way of Albrecht von Closen’s younger sister who eloped and was disinherited. There’s no record of her marriage, though, so Mary was looking for less official sources, personal letters and the like. Albrecht was a friend of Jonah’s - we have some correspondence between them regarding a collection of old books he found in Schwarzwald that he thought would interest Jonah, and I think I’ve figured out which books he was talking about and they’re in Jonah’s-”

“Jon. We’re getting off track.”

“Right. I- Right. Anyway, we haven't gone through all of it but there’s been nothing about, about cults and magic and ghosts so far.” He paused for a moment, then said slowly, “The thing is, I want to trust Gerry? But I’m not sure if that’s just because I like him and I don’t want him to be secretly evil. And I don’t know what to do.”

Melanie sighed. “Well, maybe try dropping hints into casual conversation that you might know a thing or two about cults? If he’s fishing for information, surely he’ll jump on it. God, I don’t know. Or, like I said, ask him about Gertrude.”

Jon nodded. “Alright. I'll try that.” Then he slumped back against the sofa and ran his hands through his hair. “I really am sorry for dragging you into this, but it’s been a bit of a nightmare, and… I really appreciate the company. I’m afraid I’m having a hard time trusting anyone at the moment.”

“Well, you asked _me_ for help, so I figured you were desperate. But... do you really think the others are involved?”

Jon rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know. I just… have no idea how to check? I’m not very good at being subtle about that sort of thing. I tried talking about Jonah Magnus and cults in a general sort of way, but I think I’ve just convinced them all that I’m sort of obsessing over the new job. And none of them pulled me aside afterwards and tried to give me a secret handshake or anything, so it didn’t even help.”

Melanie snickered. “Alright, look. How about I try, since I don’t know any of them that well and everybody knows I believe in ghosts, so if I start talking about them it’s not that weird. You just… keep looking through the files, let me know if you find anything else out, and maybe don’t go anywhere alone with Gerry? Just to be safe.”

Jon nodded, some of the tension going out of him now that there was an actual plan, even an incredibly vague one. “Oh, um. What are you going to do about Helen?”

Melanie frowned, finishing off her quiche, then said. “I… don’t think she’s evil either, but maybe I’ll just… I don’t know. Take things slow, and see if she does anything weird.”

Jon nodded. “Sorry. I really hope it turns out to be nothing, she seems very nice?”

“Yeah.” She put down her fork, and stared at her empty plate for a long moment, and then got to her feet, stretching. “Okay. Well, unless there’s anything else you’d like to spring on me, I’m going to go home and probably google ‘evil ghost cults’ until 2am.”

Jon gave a wincing sort of laugh. “Sorry. Like I said, I was sort of hoping you’d tell me I was being an idiot. You’re good at that.”

“Apparently not always. I mean hey,” Melanie spread her hands, indicating the whole mess of papers, “maybe it’s not a cult, maybe it’s just Gertrude and a bunch of local history buffs who read all Jonah Magnus’s books and decided to get together and have seances for fun, and this Michael guy is just a headcase who took the whole thing way too seriously and that’s why Gertrude isn’t taking his calls any more.”

Jon blinked at her. “I- _That_ actually might make sense. But-”

“Yeah, _but_.” Melanie shook her head. “Better to be sure, right?”

Jon sighed, and then got up to let her out. 

Standing outside in the hallway, Melanie hesitated, turning back to Jon. “Make sure you lock up again.”

He twitched. “I’m not an idiot,” he snapped, then took a breath, held it, let it out again. “I mean, thank you for your concern, Melanie. And, ah, be careful, won’t you?”

Melanie gave him a rueful smile. “Thanks. And yeah, this is still weird.”

“Well.” His answering smile was small, but sincere. “Georgie will be happier, anyway.”

“Unless we get murdered by cultists,” Melanie felt obliged to point out. And then had a weird moment where she remembered that conversation with Sasha about Elias and the ghost of Jonah Magnus, which would make it highly unlikely that the cultists meant to _murder_ Jon… He probably had enough to worry about right now, though, so all she said was, “And I still reserve the right to argue with you when you are objectively wrong.”

That got an actual laugh out from Jon, and he was smiling properly when he said, “_Goodnight_, Melanie,” and shut the door in her face. 

She did wait to hear the locks click shut before she left, though.

On the way home, she texted Georgie.

_Nobody died_  
_He made quiche_  
_Don’t get too excited, but we might be friends now_

_Not saying a word_  
_:D_  
_…_  
_Now I want quiche :P_

**Sunday 14th May**

Melanie paced her apartment for a while beforehand, but there was no way she was cancelling her second date with Helen on the off chance that Jon was right. 

But she had made sure that the restaurant they picked was easily accessible by public transport and would be out of Helen’s way, so she wouldn’t need to come up with excuses to avoid being offered a lift.

While they were sharing an entree plate of crumbed mushrooms, she did ask, as casually as she could manage, “Just out of curiosity, why did you wind up at the Magnus Library so much? I know it’s close to your work, but you weren’t working around here then, were you?”

“Oh, no.” Helen tensed for a moment, sort of bracing herself, but went on, “I’m not particularly religious, but after my partner died I spent a few years being obsessed with, well. Trying to contact the dead, basically, for obvious reasons. And the Magnus Library has a definite lean in that direction, and a very large non-fiction collection.”

“Oh, yeah. I blame Jonah Magnus, really,” Melanie said, trying to fight down the little voice in the back of her head screaming _oh my god she’s in a cult_. She wasn’t going to jump to conclusions. And she really liked Helen, and lots of people got very interested in the afterlife when someone they loved died. 

She made her voice as gentle as possible as she asked, “I gather you didn’t learn to talk to ghosts?” 

Helen shook her head ruefully. “No. I managed to alienate most of my friends, though. And it eventually occurred to me that if I _could_ talk to her, the first thing she would have done was yell at me for being such an idiot. She never was one to mince words. So I put the books down and found a therapist instead. I suppose it all sounds a bit silly now.”

“Not to me,” Melanie told her firmly. “I mean, I used to be a ghost hunter, so I’m in no position to give you a hard time about it.”

“Really?” Helen seemed fascinated, so Melanie told her some of her better stories, about when Ghost Hunt UK was still a group of friends doing a cool spooky show, before they became a decent commercial success and it all got really stressful. Helen countered with some stories about the really weird people she’d met showing houses, and Melanie realised by the time they were eating dessert that Helen hadn’t mentioned Jon once, nor asked about the library, or said anything cultist-related at all. And also that she hadn’t such a nice night in months, and she really hoped the way Helen was looking slightly fidgety as she finished her panna cotta meant that they were in agreement about another date.

She decided, after they parted ways with a hug and a soft, brief kiss, that all she had to do was take things as slowly as Helen wanted anyway, and never offer any information about Jon or Gertrude. If Helen was only dating her for obscure cultist reasons, she’d get frustrated pretty quickly, and it would become obvious. 

She ignored the voice in the back of her head now muttering about justifying things she wanted to do anyway. She was being safe, and careful, and Helen hadn’t done anything suspicious.

**Monday 29th May**

Melanie sat at her desk, quietly fuming. 

On her way down from eating lunch with Jon, she’d stopped by the upstairs desk and said hi to Martin, whose shift it was. He’d asked her to get some more printer paper, because they were running out. She’d asked him to remind her where they kept it, and he’d told her completely the wrong cupboard in the staff room, so she’d had to search all over the place until Sasha noticed and showed her the right one.

When she got back to the desk with the paper, Martin looked at her with clearly-fake concern and asked if she’d found it okay. She gave him her second-best glare, and he visibly paled, but she just stalked past him and refilled the printer.

Now she was quietly wondering if this meant he was just being an asshole or if this was finally a lead on the cultist investigation, which had been pretty uneventful over the last few weeks. She’d started taking her lunch up to the attic so she and Jon could talk in depressing circles about their lack of information. It was annoying, but even when they were sniping at each other he seemed less twitchy when she was there, so she figured if nothing else, she was helping. 

Elias had looked approving the few times he’d stopped by to check on Jon while she was there, which reminded her that he knew about the Michael thing, and was probably stopping by all the time because he was actually worried about Jon. She was pretty sure that put him in the clear on the cultist front. Besides which, he already had Gertrude’s contact information and could easily have passed it on to Michael if they had anything to do with each other. 

Unless it was some sort of long-term plan to terrify Jon into relying on Elias as the only person who believed him, but not only was that stupidly convoluted, it would have required Jon to be as isolated as possible, which meant he would have been annoyed by Melanie’s presence, rather than pleased, which probably ruled that out, too.

Talking to the rest of the staff had had similar results.

She’d had a couple of fascinating chats with Sasha about the paranormal, and gotten herself an invite to a Discord server called the London Literary and Paranormal Society, which was sort of a play on a book title and was basically a fantasy reading group/armchair spiritualist society. There were some really interesting discussions about the way different fantasy settings treated ghosts, but no sign of human sacrifice. And while Sasha was happy to expound on her Jonah Magnus ghost-possession theory, she never seemed the least bit serious about it.

When she tried talking to Tim, she found out that he was actually still in contact with Gertrude. Apparently they’d bonded over their fondness for adventure holidays, and Gertrude was currently halfway up a mountain in New Zealand. Tim seemed to find this entirely normal, and said Gertrude had been asking him for advice on kayaking since he’d been there two years ago with his brother. 

When Melanie tried to angle the conversation around to whether Gertrude believed in the supernatural, Tim thought she was considering doing that YouTube talk. So she now had a pile of paperwork that she’d need to fill out if she wanted to go ahead with it, although he insisted that there was no deadline, and if she wanted pointers on content he’d be happy to help her get organised. She was actually considering doing the talk now, though, and had made a mental note to take Georgie baklava and quiz her on how her podcast one had been. 

Basira continued to be entirely uninterested in the subject of ghosts, and told her dismissively not to pay too much attention to Sasha and Martin, and that if the Library was haunted she really didn’t mind as long as the ghost kept itself to itself and didn’t bother her.

Martin, on the other hand, had started behaving strangely. She was sure he was staring at her but whenever she looked at him he was looking away, and he tended to avoid her when possible. Whenever they were on desk together he’d make her repeat things or forget what she’d told him, and now there was this bullshit with the printer paper, and she was pretty sure one way or the other she needed to have a serious conversation with him. 

It was Tim’s turn for the night shift, and by the time he wished Melanie a good night and headed up to relieve Martin they'd been the only ones left in the staff room. 

She packed up her things, shut down her computer, and waited for Martin to come down. 

When he came in and saw her still sitting at her desk, chair turned to face the door, he stopped in the doorway and looked like he was considering leaving his bag and making a run for it. 

Melanie leaned forward and said icily, “Shut the door behind you. We need to talk.”

Martin stared at her nervously, but did as he was told. “A-about what?”

She stared back. “Do I actually need to list all the stupid petty things you’ve done the last couple of weeks? Or will you just admit there’s a problem?”

He swallowed hard. “I- I don’t have a problem with you.”

“Look. I get it, I’m new here. I don’t know all the little unspoken rules, so if I stole your favourite pen, or ate your last hobnob, or whatever, just _say what it was_ and I won’t do it again. This passive-aggressive bullshit is really unprofessional.”

Martin flushed. “It’s not- I, I don’t know-“

Melanie turned her stare from ‘I can wait all night if I have to’ up to ‘If you make me wait all night I will hurt you’ and Martin actually backed away from her, and when his back hit the door he made a little muffled squeak, and his eyes got very wide.

This was just embarrassing. Melanie mentally crossed him off the list of possible cultists, which meant that this was definitely about something stupid rather than her being a bad influence on Jonah Magnus’s new host body, so- She stopped. “For fuck’s sake. Tell me this isn’t about Jon.”

Martin went very red. “N-n-no. What about Jon? What’s about Jon?”

Melanie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Have you spent the last fortnight being petty and unhelpful because I’ve been eating lunch with Jon?”

They stared at each other for a moment. Then, abruptly, he burst out with, “You said you weren’t even friends! But now he’s always talking to you, and he never likes company at lunch, before he moved into the Attic he used to go outside and find somewhere quiet in the gardens to eat, and he’d get really annoyed if somebody interrupted him, so I just- I just don’t understand why he'd suddenly want to eat with _you_!.”

Melanie felt a slight twinge at that. Jon didn’t go outside anymore because he was too scared to be alone in the gardens, and he’d rather have company because at least it meant he was safe. She glared at Martin again, because Jon was making himself sick with stress, and this guy was annoyed because his crush was talking to somebody else. Punching him in the kidneys was definitely over the line, she thought absently, but would be very cathartic. 

She acknowledged the impulse, let it sit for a moment, and then breathed out slowly. 

She’d been quiet too long, and Martin was looking deeply awkward and fidgety after his little rant. 

Melanie sighed, sitting back in her chair and rubbing a hand over her face. “Right. I’m going to explain something to you, and I need you to listen very carefully. Leaving aside how stupid it is to call dibs on somebody I’ve known years longer than you have, _you can’t call dibs on people_ because people get to make their own choices. Whatever your feelings for Jon are, if you haven’t told him about them and let him give you an answer either way, then _you don’t get to complain_ if he decides to date other people, because the two of you are _not romantically involved_. And I’m not going to stop spending time with my friend because his colleague doesn’t like it, are we clear?”

Martin looked a bit watery, but he wasn’t actually crying, so that was… probably fine. He swallowed hard. “R-right. I. I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” Melanie got out of her chair, picking up her bag. “So. Stop being a prick and I won’t mention this again. And for the record, I think you’ve got terrible taste in men, and also if you’re waiting for Jon to notice you pining sadly in his direction, you’ll go to your grave alone and unfulfilled.”

He blinked a few times, and then sort of perked up. “Oh! So you two aren’t…”

Melanie put her bag back down, her eyes narrowing. “If that’s the only thing you take away from this conversation, I am going to do unpleasant things to you, Martin Blackwood.”

He shrank back again, raising his hands defensively. “No, no, I did listen to the rest! And. I do know it’s all in my head and Jon isn’t my… well, my anything. But the others have been really nice about it and Jon didn’t seem interested in anyone so it wasn’t as though it was going to be an issue, you know? And then you turned up and it seemed like maybe I’d waited too long and missed my chance, and I’m sorry I took that out on you.”

Melanie thought of Jon laughing at Gerry’s wry commentary on eighteenth century social mores and winced a little. “Like I said, you cut it out and we’re fine. And if you have a problem with me in the future? Just tell me. Send me an email or something if you don’t like confrontation, but don’t make me corner you in the staff room to get an honest answer out of you. Got it?”

Martin nodded fervently, then gave a nervous laugh. “Definitely. Uh, you’re… surprisingly intimidating.”

Melanie crossed her arms. “I’ve seen shit you wouldn’t believe, and lived to talk about it. Also I do kickboxing.”

“Well, I’m, um.” His smile was more of a grimace. “I’m really glad you just yelled at me? So thanks. For not beating me up, I guess.”

Melanie snorted. “This isn’t high school, Martin. I’m not going to beat you up, and if I do, you’re entitled to press charges.”

“I. Yeah, good point.” He blew out a breath. “I’m so glad we’re not in high school.”

She eyed him critically. “Late bloomer?”

“Yeah.” He smiled wryly. “I was short and chubby until almost seventeen.”

And gay, and wrote poetry. Melanie winced again. “Look, high school is like prison. You just have to shank somebody on the first day and the rest of them leave you alone.”

He blinked at her. “Uh. Thanks?”

She shrugged. “It worked for me. Well. Goodnight. See you tomorrow.”

He nodded, then said quietly, “So. Um. We’re okay? And you won’t…”

Melanie rolled her eyes. “No, I’m not going to tell Jon. For fuck’s sake, Martin. Goodnight!”

He gave a nervous laugh, and scuttled over to his desk as she left, and she sighed, closing the door behind her and leaning against it for a moment. This was definitely all Jon’s fault.

**Thursday 1st June**

Melanie hadn’t meant to work late this time, but she’d had a stupidly busy day and she just wanted to finish running through the overdue notices before she went home. She could seriously use a break, though, so when she heard someone in the tea room, she got up, stretching her back until her shoulders twinged. A cup of tea, she decided, and maybe see who else was working late.

It was Jon, and he had two mugs on the counter and was staring at the kettle like it was going to explode. “Hey,” she said carefully, and he jumped about a foot.

She looked him over, and there were definite signs of strain. “Jon? You alright?”

“Yes, of course, I-“ He straightened his waistcoat self-consciously. “Sorry. You startled me.”

She looked at the two cups. One was Jon’s, The Admiral gazing intently from its side, and the other was Martin’s one, with a painting of water lilies. She raised an eyebrow. “Is it Opposite Day?”

“Pardon?”

“_You’re_ making _Martin_ tea.”

Jon twitched a little. Melanie sighed. “Look, d’you want to talk about it or not.”

Jon sagged against the counter. “Martin asked me to dinner. With him. On a date.”

“Right.” Melanie was a bit surprised, but… “Well, good on him for growing a spine. And?”

“I. Said no? Because I don’t, ah return his feelings. And I said sorry. And then I said I had no idea why he liked me when I’d mostly been awful to him, and that life wasn’t like a Mills and Boon novel and sometimes when somebody is an asshole to you it doesn’t mean they’re secretly in love with you, it just means they’re an asshole, and really nobody wants to live in a Mills and Boon novel, all those relationships sound incredibly unhealthy and he deserves better. And then he looked sort of teary, so I handed him the tissue box and told him to stay put, I was going to make us some tea.”

“And then you ran away.”

Jon shrugged helplessly. “And then I ran away. What else was I supposed to do?”

The kettle boiled. Jon poured water into both cups. Melanie got her own cup out and filled it, the strong scent of peppermint comforting as she tried to think of something sensitive to say. Finally, she said, “Look. You’re not responsible for other people’s feelings.”

“What?” Jon stared at her blankly.

“I’m not saying… just be an asshole, or whatever, but you can’t _make_ other people feel things. Maybe Martin’s in love with you, but that’s not on you. He’s asked, you’ve answered, you don’t owe him anything more than that. If it turns out he didn’t actually _like_ you, and now that dating’s off the table he doesn’t want to talk to you, then _he’s_ the asshole. On the other hand, if he stops making cow eyes at you and starts calling you on your bullshit sometimes, maybe you can be actual friends now. If that’s something that you want.”

Jon smiled at her uncertainly. “I- I hope so. He’s atrocious at cataloguing, but I do actually quite like him. He’s… genuinely kind.”

“Well, maybe tell him that.” Melanie shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m as bad at this as you are.”

Jon sighed. “I’m not sure that’s true. Or at least, not anymore. And… thank you.”

He ditched the teabags, adding sugar to both cups and milk to Martin’s, then hesitated a moment, staring at the cups sitting on the counter.

“Hey,” Melanie said, before she could talk herself out of it.

He turned, and she held out her arms. “Want a hug?”

Jon searched her face warily, then stepped forward and leaned into her. He tentatively put his hands on her shoulders, so she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him firmly. After a moment, he relaxed into it. He was too thin, she thought irritably, feeling the sharp edges of his shoulder blades under her hands, and when she stepped back his eyes were too bright. He blinked a few times, then said hoarsely, “Uh, thank you, Melanie. I-“ he broke off, and had to clear his throat.

She waved he thanks away. “It’s been... a rough couple of weeks. I’ll talk to you later. Uh, good luck.”

He nodded, took a few more moments to compose himself, then picked up both mugs and walked away, balancing them carefully.

**Friday 2nd June**

Tim gave her a meaningful look when she walked into the staff room the next morning. Melanie frowned, but walked over to lean against his desk. “What’s up?”

He glanced around, but the room was otherwise empty, and then looked up at her. “So. I hear you had a chat with Martin.”

“The gossip mill in this place is amazing,” she said dryly. 

Tim shrugged. “I have my ways. By which I mean Martin called me last night and spent several hours crying over the phone.”

Melanie cringed slightly. “You’re a good friend.”

Tim smiled ruefully. “I like Martin, and he’s my shoulder of choice when I break up with somebody too.”

“Not Sasha?” Melanie asked, surprised.

“I go to Sasha when I want somebody to analyse my behaviour and tell me how I screwed up. Martin will watch romcoms and eat ice cream with me, no questions asked. Anyway, during the lengthy explanation of how he confessed his feelings, and Jon’s very Jon attempt at letting him down easy via literary criticism, your name came up. He was a bit vague on the details, but, well. I thought one of us was going to have to say something to him when he started getting snippy with you for spending time with Jon, but I guess you sorted that out?”

Melanie nodded. “Pretty sure there was something about ‘interpersonal conflict resolution’ in my job description.”

Tim laughed. “Well, colour me impressed. Good for you, though. He can get a bit weird about Jon. A couple of years back at the work Christmas party we hung mistletoe in the doorway as a joke, and I kissed Jon under it once and Martin didn’t talk to me for a week. It was pretty annoying considering Sasha and I put the bloody stuff up hoping those two would wind up snogging and he’d actually get up the nerve to say something, but no luck.” He shrugged. “We tried all the movie cliches and nothing worked. So we’re sort of dying of curiosity to hear what you said to him.”

Melanie eyed him thoughtfully. “We?”

“Me and Sasha. We were both around for the grand debacle that was Martin joining the cataloguers, which we’re pretty sure was when this started. Martin used to be a library assistant, while he was still at uni, I don’t know if-“

Melanie nodded. “Elias mentioned it.”

“Right,” he went on, “so, Martin had been saying that he was going to quit studying and find a full-time job, and then one of the cataloguers left- this was maybe five years ago, back before we started outsourcing most of that, we had a lot more staff then. So anyway, Elias asked Martin if he’d like to join the cataloguing team, said we could train him up and he wouldn’t have to leave. The ‘we’ involved in the training turned out to be Jon, and Martin was _not_ a natural at cataloguing.” 

He shook his head. “It was a stressful time for everyone. By the time a spot opened up in Home Library and Elias gently suggested that that might suit Martin better, Jon had a permanent nervous tic and Martin had somehow developed a crush on him. Bit of a worry really, that boy. But Jon’s nice enough even if he doesn’t always show it and I think he actually likes Martin when he’s not, you know, responsible for him. So Sasha and I figured, why not? But Jon’s… Jon, and we couldn’t convince Martin to just talk to him.”

Melanie sighed. “Look, it was pretty simple. I told Martin that if he hadn’t told Jon how he felt then Jon would never notice and he’d have no right to complain if Jon dated somebody else.”

Tim blinked. “Huh. We tried that, but Jon so rarely pays any attention to other people I don’t think he really believed it until you turned up.”

“He’s not that bad,” Melanie muttered. 

“No, but he’s been worse since he got the new job.” Tim shook his head. “I don’t know, it’s too bad he isn’t interested. Martin’s a sweetheart and I really feel like Jon could do with somebody caring about him.”

Melanie opened her mouth, then closed it again. Jon could tell them about Gerry in his own time, which meant probably never.

**Tuesday 13th June**

Melanie blinked at her email when she got back from lunch. She had a message from Jon that just had ‘Are you busy? Please come up’ in the subject, and the message was empty except for the default signature.

Considering that Jon treated email correspondence with the same gravity that most people reserved for job applications and letters of condolence, and signed off with ‘kind regards’ even if the entire body of the message was ‘Thanks’, this was somewhat alarming.

She glanced around quickly but there was nothing urgent going on, so she snagged a roll of peppermints out of her drawer and headed up. The vague urge to feed Jon was new, but she sort of understood why other people did it now. He did often seem like he might benefit from a sandwich and a lie down. 

She jogged up the stairs, and knocked before she opened the door. Gerry was leaning on his desk, and Melanie’s eyes narrowed, but the faintly suspicious stare he sent her way before relaxing gave her pause. “Jon? You okay?”

“Um. Thank you for coming, I just-“ he stopped, his fingers knotting together on the desk. “Ah.” He stopped again. 

Gerry turned to her. “We went out for lunch. And while we were lined up at the cafe to order, this man joined the line behind us. He said hello to Jon, and that it was nice to see him again. Asked how he was getting on in the new job, and whether he’d found anything interesting in the Local Studies section. I turned around to ask Jon what was going on, and the guy immediately said ‘I’ll see you around’ and walked away.” Gerry stopped, frowning. “Which, I admit, sounds fairly normal now that I’m saying it, but he had a really creepy way of talking and he kept staring at Jon. And Jon clearly didn’t like it, so we got the food to go and came back here. I do sort of need to leave, but-”

Melanie frowned at Jon, who looked shaky and a bit nauseous. “Yeah. Thanks. Jon?”

He looked up at her. 

“Was it Michael?” 

He nodded, shoulders hunching.

Melanie’s fingers tightened into fists. She glanced at Gerry sideways. She had no idea what a ghost cultist looked like, but she was pretty sure the expression of bewildered concern on Gerry’s face wasn’t it. 

He glanced between her and Jon. “I- Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I just- Are you going to be alright?”

Jon looked up at him. “Yes. I- Thank you. I don’t. Are you going to be late?”

Gerry shook his head. “We came back early, remember? I’m fine.”

“So that guy,” Melanie said flatly, since it seemed like they were just going to stare at each other for a bit and she had things to do. “He knew Gertrude, he’s pissed off that she skipped town without telling him, and he seems to be stalking Jon. If he shows up, just… What you did was good.”

“Shit.” Gerry’s eyes had widened. “Is there something you can do?” 

“We’re working on it,” Melanie said tightly. She perched on the edge of the desk, and handed Jon the roll of mints. He blinked at them dubiously, but opened it and ate one. 

Gerry hovered for a moment more, until Jon looked up at him and murmured. “Sorry about lunch. I- Maybe another time?”

Gerry’s face softened. “Yeah. I’d like that. Okay, I actually do have to- You’re okay?”

“Yes. I’ll see you Thursday?”

‘Alright. Thursday.”

He hesitated for a moment longer, then turned on his heel and headed for the lift.

After the doors closed, Melanie said slowly, “So he and Michael didn’t seem to know each other?”

Jon stared up at her, horrified, but then she could see his brain kicking in. “No, they didn’t.”

Melanie nodded. “I agree. Either he’s a brilliant actor, or he’s got no idea what’s going on.”

Jon sighed, slumping onto his desk. “I hate this.”

“Yeah.” Melanie sighed, then padded over to the spare computer and logged on. 

“What are you doing?” Jon straightened up to eye her curiously.

Melanie shrugged. “I’ve got work to do, but I can check my emails just as well from here. Eat your lunch.”

Jon ate a few more peppermints, and then picked morosely at a turkey sandwich that must have been his lunch. Melanie stuck around until she was done with emails, and then said, “You alright?”

Jon scowled at her. “I’m fine.” Then he took a breath, let it out, and said much more politely. “I’m much better. And thanks. For coming up, and for staying.”

Melanie shrugged one shoulder awkwardly. “It’s fine. I’m going to head back downstairs. Don’t get kidnapped or anything.”

Jon snorted with laughter, so she didn’t feel too bad about leaving him up there alone.

**Wednesday 14th June **

Melanie was just opening her emails the next day when Jon stopped at her desk and wished her a good morning. Melanie looked up, but stopped halfway through returning the greeting to wince. He’d changed clothes, at least, but he didn’t look like he’d slept at all. 

“You okay?”

“I- not really. Can I talk to you?”

“Sure. Give me a minute?”

He nodded and headed for the stairs, and she snagged herself a cup of tea and followed. 

“I got this in the mail yesterday.” He handed her a pair of plastic sleeves. One of them contained an envelope, plain white, with Jon’s name and address on a printed label stuck on the front. 

The other was… Melanie hesitated to call it a letter. It was only two lines, plain black text on white printer paper:

> You must be terribly lonely, all by yourself in your flat.  
Perhaps I’ll stop by and keep you company.

There was nothing else on it. 

Melanie stared at the paper, white-hot fury making her hands shake as she carefully put the plastic sleeves down on the desk.

She looked at Jon. He was leaning against his desk, fingers gripping the edge as if it were the only thing holding him up. She blew out a breath. “Good thinking with the plastic sleeves.”

He shrugged. “Not sure that it’ll do any good, I doubt he was stupid enough to lick the stamp, but it made me feel like I was accomplishing something.”

She nodded, then said carefully, “You do know what this means, right?”

“That he knows where I live? I think that was rather the point.”

Melanie nodded slowly. “Look, this is- this is really bad, Jon. I’m not kidding. I think. I think we need to at least talk to the others.”

He stared at her, horribly conflicted. “What if it turns out that they’re involved?”

Melanie drummed her fingers on the desk. “Look, I’ve talked to all of them, and I really don’t think they are, but… They can’t _all_ be in this damn cult. What if we tell them all together? Just- Friday night. I’ll get everybody at the pub to come over to my place, and that way unless they really are all in it together, we’ve definitely got some backup. Okay?”

After a long moment, reluctantly, he nodded. 

“Alright.” She bit her lip thoughtfully. “Let me figure out the logistics.”

**Thursday 15th June**

She sidled up to Gerry midway through the morning while Jon was busy showing an older woman how to work the microfilm reader. “Hey. I’m having a thing this Friday. You should come along.”

“A thing,” Gerry said, amused. “What kind of thing?”

“A thing at my place, with snacks and beverages. And some of the library staff.”

His eyes flicked to Jon, who was now demonstrating how to print from microfilm.

“Yes, Jon will be there,” Melanie told him, and was amused to see his ears turn slightly pink.

“Right. Uh. Why are you asking me when he’s not here?”

“Because he thinks you’re much too cool to want to hang out with a bunch of librarians on a Friday night.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Oh.” His ears were definitely pink now. “I’m really not, though. What should I bring?”

Melanie hummed thoughtfully. “Something bread-ish and any alcohol if you want it. I don’t drink.”

“Bread-ish. Okay. Sure.” He still looked a little bewildered, but he returned Melanie’s smile and handed her his phone so she could add her address and number to his contacts.

“Also Jon, if that’s not too much trouble.”

Gerry blinked at her. “What?”

“Jon has the late shift here Friday night, so it would be great if you could pick him up.”

“Oh, right!” Gerry relaxed. “Sure, that’s no problem.” 

Jon padded over, one eye still on his customer who was carefully adjusting the viewer to her satisfaction. He frowned slightly as Melanie handed Gerry back his phone. “Dare I ask what you two are up to?”

“I invited Gerry. To the thing on Friday.

Jon’s eyes widened. “Why? I thought you were- Um.”

“I thought it might be good to have him there. Since he’s been around for some of it, and he’s pretty clearly worried about you.”

Jon’s ears didn’t go pink, but he cleared his throat uncertainly, and glanced at Gerry. “Well. Ah-”

“Hey,” Gerry said mildly, looking a lot less bewildered now. “If this is about whatever’s got you jumping at shadows all the time? I’d be happy to help.”

“Oh.” Jon met his eyes briefly, looking flustered but pleased. “Well, if it’s not putting you out.”

“I wasn’t busy. Besides, your colleagues are great. I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

“Also he’s picking you up from here, so you don’t have to get the bus.”

Jon glanced between the two of them. “Is that… I mean, I don’t want to be a bother.”

“You’re not a bother, Jon,” Gerry told him firmly. “And I’d be happier knowing you weren’t getting a bus late at night when there’s some creep hanging around.”

Jon shifted restlessly, like he couldn’t decide whether he was annoyed or pleased by this, but at last he settled on pleased. “Well, if you’re sure, I’d be most grateful.”

Melanie left them to it, and slipped back downstairs to make plans.

**Friday 16th June**

Melanie found it was surprisingly easy to get a bunch of tired and slightly-giddy librarians to her house. She just promised them snacks, and also the answer to why Jon had been acting weird since he got the Local Studies job. The combination was apparently irresistible, and they all piled into Tim’s car immediately.

She’d just rustled up enough seats for everyone when there was a knock at the door, and Sasha, who was closest, opened it to admit Jon and Gerry.

Jon looked… better than she was expecting. Clearly Gerry was a steadying influence.

“Right,” Melanie said clearly. “This is Gerry, full name Gerard Keay, he volunteers in the attic. Jon’s got some papers that we want you all to have a look at, tell us what you think. You too, Gerry.”

Jon set out the folder, and they descended upon it, taking sections each and looking at them intently, swapping them around when they were done. 

Melanie stood next to Jon and watched them, hoping for… she wasn’t sure what, exactly. Something obviously cultist-y?

“Ooh.” Sasha picked up one of the pages. “Is this… Huh. It is! I know these, they’re from Jonah Magnus’s books, right? The stuff about transubstantiation, and the sacred geometry. What’s with this ritual, though?”

Gerry leaned in, interested, then he picked up one of the emails. “Ohhh! Is this Gertrude’s new game? She was making one based on the Jonah Magnus stuff, I remember Mum was livid when she started getting sick and couldn’t play any more, because she was really excited about it.”

They all stared at him. 

“You what?” Melanie said blankly.

Gerry looked around the circle slowly. “Gertrude and my mum were both into role-playing games. You know, Dungeons and Dragons? That sort of thing? They liked the investigative type rather than swords and sorcery, but you get the picture. Gertrude wrote her own sometimes, Mum said she was really good. And the last one I heard about, Mum said she was working on some sort of period piece based on Jonah Magnus and some weird cult he was supposedly mixed up with.”

There was dead silence for a moment.

Melanie considered the fact that she’d been sneaking around with Jon for _months_, over a stupid misunderstanding, and now she looked like a complete idiot in front of her coworkers, and she felt the slow churn of rage in the pit of her stomach, hot and nauseating. 

Jon slowly turned to look at Melanie. They stared at each other. She could see the same sharp furious discomfort in his face, the urge to lash out and leave. 

She took a slow breath in, then let it out. Then another.

Jon matched her breathing carefully the second time. 

Then suddenly his eyes widened. “Oh my god,” he choked out, in a sort of horrified hilarity. “I’m Catherine Morland.”

Melanie blinked, then she felt the bubble of rage she was trying to disperse just sort of pop, and she and Jon both cracked up. All the stress of the past few weeks, of the months since she’d started here, and she just dissolved into hysterical giggles, laughing so hard her sides started to hurt, until she and Jon were leaning against each other to stay upright, and she finally managed to get her breathing under control only to lose it again at the sight of Jon’s reddened face, eyes watering a little as he wheezed. 

Finally, they both staggered over to the sofa and slumped there in a heap, trying to get some air. After a couple of minutes, Melanie realised the others were talking and raised her head to pay attention.

“Well, you have to admit,” Sasha was saying with a sort of cheerful fondness, “if anybody was going to be a Gothic heroine around here, it would definitely be Jon.”

“Yeah,” Martin said dreamily, then shook himself.

Gerry frowned. “Wait, hang on. The whole point of Northanger Abbey is that it’s all in Catherine’s head, right? It’s a comedy of errors. But this Michael guy is actually stalking Jon. “

“What?” They all stared at him, then turned to Jon, who was slumped against Melanie’s shoulder, cleaning his glasses. 

Jon blinked at them myopically. Without his glasses, the dark hollows ringing his eyes and under his cheekbones were even more pronounced and he just looked exhausted. He put the glasses back on and blinked at them again. “Sorry? I… missed the question?”

“Is somebody stalking you?” Basira demanded sharply.

Jon’s shoulders hunched, all the tension that had gone out of him after the laughing fit returning almost instantly.

“That… depends on what you mean by stalking.”

“Following you around, lurking outside your place of work, accosting you on the street and making threatening remarks?” Gerry offered.

“Also that time he assaulted you in the library,” Melanie put in helpfully.

Tim dropped the papers he was holding. “What?”

Sasha’s eyebrows shot up, and she opened her mouth to say something but Basira waved her away and asked. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, really,” Jon protested. “That was months ago, right after I took over from Gertrude. I reported the whole thing to Elias, and he banned Michael, but I didn’t try to press charges or anything. It didn’t seem… well. At the time I thought he was just upset that Gertrude had left without telling him and that he would, ah, get over it, I suppose.”

“I gather he didn’t?” Basira’s voice was steady and careful. 

“Ah… no. He hasn’t been back in the library? So whatever Elias did was effective.”

“But he’s been bothering you _outside_ the library?” Basira was watching him intently as he nodded. 

“Is that letter you got in the pile?” Melanie asked, glancing at the apparently-not-a-cult information.

Jon shook his head, and fetched it from his bag, handing it over to Basira to look at. “I got this in the post two days ago.”

Basira took the letter in its plastic sleeve and eyed it darkly, picking up the threatening email from Gertrude’s files as if to compare them.

“Is that why you’ve been working weird hours all the time?” Martin asked suddenly.

Jon shifted uncomfortably. “I thought it might be for the best if I didn’t come and go at the same time every day, especially since I take the bus. But there is also just a lot to get done. Gertrude’s filing system is idiosyncratic at best and actively unhelpful at worst, it’s like she didn’t _want_ people to be able to find information.”

“Job security?” Tim suggested. “She and Elias didn’t get along, but there was no way he was going to fire her if he didn’t have somebody else to drop that mess on.”

“Gee, thanks,” Jon muttered.

Gerry snorted. “Like you’re not enjoying it.”

Jon’s mouth twitched up at the corner, but he said irritably, “I might like setting up my own system from scratch, but it is eating up a lot of time I don’t have. Hence the late hours.”

Basira, who had been frowning thoughtfully the whole time, said slowly, “Jon. Have you talked to Daisy about this?”

“Ah, no.” Jon shrugged. “I didn’t like to bother her, and it didn’t seem that bad? I really thought it would all blow over, and I felt rather silly, to be honest. The fact that it’s apparently over a _game_ is just…” He spread his hands wide, looking bewildered.

“Wait,” Tim said suddenly. “So, you guys thought there was an evil cult, but it turns out it’s just Mr Shelley, the local real estate agent? This isn’t Jane Austen, it’s Scooby Doo.”

That made everybody laugh, and Melanie took advantage of the break in tension to herd them in the direction of the table and make them have drinks and snacks. 

Sasha fished in Melanie’s cupboards for glasses and started pouring drinks with a bartender's flair.

Basira, not willing to be distracted, turned to Jon. “Right. Well, cults might be a bit beyond our scope, but evil real estate agents the police can deal with.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “If something like this happens again-“

“How?” Tim asked blankly, mouth full of breadstick.

Basira turned to glare at him and he raised his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, these are very specific circumstances, Basira.”

“Look,” Jon interrupted, “I swear, if it had just been this business with Michael, I would have asked Daisy for help the first time I saw him outside the library. But I’d already found Gertrude’s papers by then and… it was sort of a combination of being entirely paranoid but also knowing that the whole thing sounded ridiculous? And I was sort of hoping that he would just… go away.”

Basira shrugged. “And sometimes they do. But if they don’t give up, stalkers tend to escalate. Is this the first time you’ve gotten something like this?”

Jon nodded.

“So,” Basira ticked them off on her fingers. “After he assaulted you, he started off lurking around the library, then he approached you multiple times, and then you got a threatening letter, which means he knows where you live.”

Jon nodded again, unhappily.

Basira winced. “That’s not good. Right. Daisy’s on shift now, but we’ve got nothing on tomorrow. Jon?”

He blinked at her. “Yes?”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Ah, well, I was going to-“ She raised an eyebrow sharply, and he finished uncertainly, “talk to Daisy?”

“Correct.” 

Jon swallowed. Melanie sidled up to him and leaned their shoulders together. “Look at you go, trusting people.”

He blew out a breath. “Fine, I suppose in this one instance you were correct.”

She leaned a little harder. His mouth twitched up reluctantly. 

Then he stepped away from her and cleared his throat. The others, who had been very deliberately concentrating on getting drinks, turned around.  
“I just wanted to apologise. I know my behaviour over the last few months has been… somewhat antisocial, even for me. Also for suspecting you all of belonging to a fictional ghost cult. Sorry.”

“Hey, apology accepted,” Sasha said immediately. “We all knew you were stressed, and you haven’t been that bad.”

Tim shrugged. “I've been suspected of worse things. And I’m sorry none of us noticed what a rough time you were having.”

“Yeah,” Martin chimed in. “I’m sorry too. We should have asked, at least when you started getting all jumpy.”

Gerry raised his glass. “I’ve only ever seen you stressed, so I’m looking forward to seeing the difference once this is all over and you relax. Do you wear sneakers to work? Maybe a t-shirt?”

Jon raised his chin defiantly. “I would never.”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “See, this is why the ghost of Jonah Magnus likes him.”

That got another round of laughs and they all started to argue about Gertrude’s game. Tim was, as expected, hideously offended that she’d put Smirke in the cult. Melanie did ask Gerry if he remembered who else had been in his mother and Gertude’s gaming group, and he came up with a few names: Jurgen Leitner, Adelard Dekker, Mikael Salesa. 

Nobody had contact information for the other two, but Sasha promised to ask Adelard, and Tim said he would try Gertrude, but she might not have internet access where she was. That settled, they went back to the Magnus Collection, ghosts, and whether there were actually secret tunnels in the basement or if Gertrude had invented them completely.

At midnight Melanie yawned obviously and started shooing them towards the door. 

Basira went easily enough, with a last reminder to Jon that he was coming round her place for lunch, and he’d better not forget. 

Melanie eyed Jon for a moment, wondering if he’d agree to borrow the sofa rather than go home on his own, but then Gerry offered him a lift and he accepted with only one half-hearted protest about it being out of his way, so that was alright. 

Martin watched them leave together wistfully. He turned to Melanie and said quietly, “Did you know they were dating? When we had that conversation about Jon.”

Melanie snorted. “They aren’t dating. Yet. And that’s not why Jon said no, either. He’d never date anybody who’d let him walk all over them the way you do, because he doesn’t always realise he’s doing it.” She eyed him narrowly. “You want somebody who’ll be nice to you."

He looked bewildered. “Doesn’t everybody?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Jon’s kind of an asshole, though, and he knows it.”

“He’s not-” He sighed. “Well, maybe a bit. Sorry, it’s just- since you turned up, I'm sort of realising that I don’t actually know him as well as I thought? And it’s.” He laughed, shakily. “Like getting over a breakup with somebody who mostly existed in my head. I- Well. It seems a bit stupid now, since apparently Jon’s been being stalked by some maniac and I’ve been worrying about whether or not he fancies me. Puts it all in perspective, I suppose.”

Martin had definitely had too much to drink, Melanie thought with reluctant concern. “Look, maybe I should call you a taxi or something.”

“It’s fine,” Tim said cheerfully, slinging an arm over Martin’s shoulders. “We’ve got him sorted.”

Martin sighed again, leaning into Tim. “Thanks. You guys are brilliant, you know that?”

“We are,” Sasha agreed, looking over the table. “Did you want me to take all this alcohol off your hands?”

“Help yourself,” Melanie said, relieved. “Leave the breadsticks, though. Those are really good. I need to find out where Gerry got them.”

The three of them departed a few minutes later, Sasha carrying a bag clinking with bottles and Tim steering a slightly-maudlin Martin.

Melanie tidied up a bit, made herself a cup of tea, and slumped down on the sofa, taking a few moments to let it all sink in.

No cult. That was good. And it wasn’t just her and Jon anymore. She took a few long, deep breaths, feeling how much less tension there was in her shoulders already. Now there was just Jon’s stalker to deal with, and it felt like they had that well in hand.

She frowned at the clock, then fished for her phone, sending Helen a quick text: 

_Want to get lunch tomorrow?_


	5. Interlude: Saturday 17th June

They met up at a nice cafe, so Melanie could get overpriced avocado toast and really good chai, while Helen had coffee and pumpkin soup.

Melanie knew she’d been too quiet, trying to think of a good way to explain the whole stalker-cult thing without coming off like a complete idiot, but when she finally focussed, she realised Helen was just picking at the bread roll that had come with her soup, looking nervous.

She blinked, confused, and then said carefully, “Look, Helen, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been sort of weird the last couple of weeks?”

Helen gave an uncertain laugh. “I… was starting to think either there was something in the water around here, or that whatever I’d done to put Jon off, I’d somehow managed to do it again. It was a bit upsetting, to be honest.”

“I… Yeah. I really am sorry. It’s not anything _you_ did to Jon, you’re lovely and I don’t think you could have had any idea. I- look. It’s sort of a long story, so.” She explained as succinctly as she could, leaving in the part about the supposed cult because it was embarrassing, but it was also sort of important. 

Helen listened with quiet horror, and when she was finished, said softly, “God. No wonder Jon came over all funny when I said where my new job was. I- Is he alright? I mean, obviously he’s not alright. I don’t-“

“Hey, he'll be fine, we’re handling it," Melanie said firmly. "One of the other librarians used to be in the police, and her partner still is, so Jon’s going to talk to them today, work out his options. And look, it was just an unlucky coincidence that you turned up just after Michael got banned, so then Jon got all paranoid that you were working for him, because, well.”

“I was _actually working for him_.“ She shook her head. “That must have been terrifying.”

“Yeah. Still not your fault though, and I think if you try talking to Jon he’ll probably apologise. So, um. That’s what I’ve been up to lately, how are you?”

Helen laughed, startled. “Well, besides my nebulously-defined relationship going weird on me, I haven’t been too bad. Certainly nothing as exciting as what you’ve been up to.”

Melanie rolled her eyes. “I blame Magnus Library. I’ve worked with actual paranormal investigators and it wasn’t this weird.”

Helen laughed again, her eyes crinkling at the corners adorably. “Well, I suppose I’m just relieved you hadn’t decided to break up with me for legitimate non-supernatural reasons and couldn’t think how to do it nicely.”

Melanie stared at her. “I- What? Why would I do that?”

Helen shrugged, flushing slightly. “Well, I am ten years older than you, and a bit of a mess.”

Melanie tilted her chin up and held her eyes steadily. “Ten years is only a lot if one of you is a teenager. And maybe you are a mess, but so am I. So are most people! I don’t mind. I’m sorry for suspecting you of being in an evil ghost cult, but so long as you aren’t, I really like you and I hope you stick around.”

Helen smiled at her helplessly, that slow smile with the dimples. “Oh, dear. You really are very- I have no idea what to say to that!” She shook her head, laughing a little, then looked back at Melanie. “Yes, I am very glad to stick around if you still want me to. I promise not to sacrifice Jon to any evil ghosts, ever, and I assure you, the feeling is mutual.”

Melanie breathed out, smiling back at her, and they probably looked a pair of complete idiots, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. 

They finished the rest of their lunch in companionable quiet, though when Melanie left her hand on the table, Helen reached across and took it, smiling down into her coffee as she did so.


	6. Part Three: In which Melanie Solves a Problem with the Aid of her Friends

**Monday 19th June**

Melanie made sure to get in early on Monday morning, and headed up to the attic. Jon was already there, and so were Basira and Sasha.

They traded tired greetings, and then Basira said firmly, “Right. So, Jon talked to Daisy, she’s got everything he had, including the letter. She’s going to catch up with Gerry tomorrow, get a statement about that time Michael showed up when you two were out to lunch.”

Jon nodded. “I spoke to Elias, he said he’ll forward on the report he made about the first time Michael showed up, the letter banning him, and the security footage of him entering and leaving.”

“Excellent. Sasha?”

Sasha nodded. “Tim told me he hasn't gotten an answer from Gertrude yet, but that’s pretty normal while she’s out. Adelard did get back to me, though. He said Michael joined them a few years ago when one of their group moved overseas and couldn’t manage the regular games. Gertrude invited him, since he was one of her volunteers and had expressed an interest.”

She fished out her phone, scrolling through something as she talked. “He seemed fine, a bit intense, but he wasn’t the weirdest player they know and some people get very into the role-playing aspect of it. Then he and Gertrude had some sort of falling-out in the middle of last year, and they were quite stiff with one another after that. It wasn’t in-game, so none of the other players knew what it was about. He says here that they were all a bit distracted because one of the other regular players had some health problems and had to drop out, just before Gertrude started her new game.”

Jon cleared his throat. “That would have been Mary Keay, Gerry’s mother.”

Sasha glanced up, and her mouth twisted. “Right, yeah. I think Gerry said dementia? Adelard didn’t give any details.” They were all quiet for a moment. 

Then Sasha shook her head. “Adelard did try asking Gertrude what happened with Michael but she just, and I quote, ‘rolled her eyes and said that some people took everything far too personally’. Anyway, whatever it was, Adelard said Michael stopped volunteering at the library and he hasn’t seen him since. He was still in their regular game, Gertrude’s Jonah Magnus investigation, but they’d switched to playing online since Jurgen moved to Wales, so not in person.”

“Then Gertrude decided to retire. She warned Adelard that this was in the works, but she didn’t mention it during their games at all. He figured she’d told everyone else privately too, so when she dropped a message in their group chat saying that she was leaving the country for a while and the game would be on indefinite hiatus, he thought it was just a formality. But then Michael reacted with ‘WTF!!!’ and demands about when she would be back and if she could at least tell them how it ended, so obviously she hadn’t told _him_. Adelard was pretty surprised, especially since her only reply was that she was going to get on a plane now, and would not be answering her emails for a while.”

Basira whistled. “Cold. Though I guess that would have been after he sent that threatening email.”

Sasha shrugged. “From the sounds of it they really didn’t like each other anymore. The bit about not answering her email is a total lie, by the way, since she’s been writing to Tim on and off this whole time. He showed me some of her photos, and damn, those are some gorgeous mountains.”

She paused. “Sorry, getting off-topic. Anyway. Adelard says Michael dropped out of the group after that, and hasn’t been back. They’re still playing, and they’re hoping Gertrude is still interested when she’s finished her sabbatical so they aren’t really looking for new players. Which is a shame, because Mikaele has been running some sort of William Gibson-y cyberpunk thing, which sounds really cool. So.” She spread her hands wide. “No idea what this fight was about, but it was serious business and things were not okay afterwards, and then Gertrude deliberately skipped town without telling Michael, and it sounds like he took the whole thing _very_ badly. ”

Basira hummed thoughtfully. “Alright, that’s good to know. See if you can pin Adelard down to specifics, or at least a rough idea of when this falling out happened, so we can see if it lines up with that threatening email. Also, if he’s still got access to chat logs, it would be great if we could get that last conversation between Gertrude and Michael.”

“I’ve got the volunteer records,” Melanie offered. “I can find out when Michael quit volunteering here.”

“Good thinking. Alright, we’ll get on that, and hopefully Gertrude gets back to Tim soon. In the meantime, Jon?”

“Yes?” He straightened up, eyeing her warily.

“You don’t go anywhere alone, okay? I know it’s annoying, but we’re trying to keep you safe. Tim said he’ll drive you home if you agree to knock off at a reasonable hour, and you normally get the same bus in as I do, so that should work, but just… be careful. Depending on how things go, you might want to consider staying with a friend for a bit.”

Jon sighed. “I… would prefer to consider that a last resort? He hasn’t actually been violent, except for the first time, and that wasn’t anything serious.”

“The letter was threatening and he knows where you live. I’d prefer you didn’t take chances.” Basira told him firmly. 

Jon started to protest, and Basira looked him in the eye and said, “We’re worried. Because we care. Don’t do anything stupid, alright?”

Jon deflated, but his expression was sort of soft and bewildered. “Alright. I’ll do my best.”

She patted him on the shoulder, and she and Sasha headed for the lift. Melanie waited until they were out of earshot, and then said quietly, “Look, I’d murder you myself if we tried to cohabit, but you know Georgie would offer in a heartbeat, and she wouldn’t even ask any questions.”

Jon leaned against his desk tiredly. “I… I know. But I’d rather not be put out of my home if I can help it.”

Melanie couldn't really argue with that, so she nodded and left him to his piles of spooky documents.

She was just getting home that night when her phone rang. Cursing, she put down her bag and her keys to fish it out of her pocket, but when she saw the caller ID she smiled. “Hi, Helen,” she said warmly. “What’s up?”

“Melanie,” Helen’s smooth, soft voice was uncertain. “I- Sorry, is this a bad time?”

“No, no, I just got home.” Melanie shut the door behind her, peeling off her jacket one-handed. “Is everything alright?”

“I’m fine, I just. Remember when you said Michael, my boss, had some sort of grudge against the old Local Studies librarian.”

“Yes?”

“Well, I was talking to Gabriel, one of the other realtors, today. I mentioned that I’d been at the library, and he made a disgusted noise, so I asked what about it bothered him, and he said that Michael used to be friends with one of the librarians, but that she’d screwed him over on some business with a heritage listed building, and then wouldn’t even admit that she’d done anything wrong. I made appropriately sympathetic noises, and asked which librarian, but he said it didn’t matter since she was retired.”

“Huh.” Melanie frowned. “And you just... just happened to mention the library, did you?”

Helen gave a little huff. “Alright, I admit, I deliberately brought it up, in the hopes that Gabriel would know something. He and Michael are friends, and have worked together for years. I thought that if he was going to confide in anybody here, Gabriel would be it.”

Melanie smiled, knew it came across in her voice. “Well, I guess that makes you an honorary member of the Scooby gang.”

“Ooh, do I get a badge?” Helen asked, voice warm with amusement. 

“Sorry, we don’t have anything official.” Melanie kicked off her shoes, tucking the phone against her shoulder so she could pick up her bag again and start sorting out her stuff. “But it means you get invited to the next meeting.”

“Oh, dear. Dare I ask what happens at these meetings?”

“Well, we discuss how incredibly difficult it is to prove somebody is stalking you, and we make sure Jon’s doing okay, and sometimes we eat food. I think you know everybody on staff, don’t you?”

“Well, all the librarians, anyway. The assistants change quite often. And… you’d like me to be there?”

“Well, I invited Gerry to the last one, so there’s precedent. And I always like to see you.”

“Oh, well.” Helen had that slightly-flustered note to her voice that meant she was blushing. “In that case, I’d be delighted.”

**Sunday 25th June**

Melanie woke up Sunday morning to find Tim had put a message in their group chat, saying that Gertrude had finally answered and they were meeting for brunch. She looked at the clock, and groaned. Then she texted Helen.

Helen met her at the tube station so that they could walk together, and they held hands the whole way to the cafe.

Jon was sitting in between Daisy and a yawning Gerry, with Basira on Daisy’s other side, and Tim, Sasha and Martin spread out around the table. Melanie pulled out a chair for Helen, who rolled her eyes but sat in it. 

“Right, I think you know all the library folks, the sleepy goth over there is Gerry and the only person besides Sasha who looks disgustingly wide-awake is Daisy.”

Helen chuckled. “I understand some people enjoy mornings. I’m Helen.”

“Uh, Helen,” Jon said slowly. “I understand Melanie has filled you in?”

“Yes. And I apologise for causing you distress. I assure you it wasn’t intentional.”

Jon sighed. “Well, I apologise for suspecting you of being an evil cultist. Which is a sentence I have said far too often.”

“Right,” Daisy said firmly. “Anybody else need to apologise? No? Good. Let’s see this email, then.”

Tim pulled a tablet out of his bag and loaded it up, and they all crowded around to read.

> Dear Tim,  
I am sorry that he’s been such a bother. I am aware that I did not handle the situation particularly well, but I had other things on my mind at the time, and it simply did not occur to me that he would take his ridiculous grudge out on anybody else. So, I hope this will be of some use to you:  
  
In May of last year, when Michael Shelley was still volunteering in the Local Studies section of the Magnus Library, he mentioned in conversation that he was involved in the sale of a house on Hill Top Road. He said that the owners were having some difficulty finding a buyer, and were thinking of taking the property off the market again to renovate it because the interior was very dated. We discussed the matter only briefly, but after he left I realised he had been talking about the house that had formerly belonged to Walter Fielding, and I wondered if it had been heritage listed. I quickly discovered that it wasn’t, although it should have been, and sent an email to someone I knew in the Oxford Historical Society.  
  
Apparently they got all up in arms when they heard that the owners were planning to renovate, there were lawyers involved, and the owners blamed Michael’s company. I understand that there were a number of unpleasant reviews left on forums and ratings websites, and Michael was quite upset. He sent me a nasty email, which rather put my back up, and then he came to the library to see me and demanded to know why I had done it.  
  
I gained the impression from his little rant that one of the Historical Society people had mentioned my name at some point, and he had decided the entire mess was my fault. I pointed out that he should have realised that the building was of historical significance himself, and that his clients’ reaction was hardly my fault. He called me a number of unpleasant things, said he would no longer be volunteering his time at the library, and left.  
  
I had him removed from the volunteer register immediately, and that should have been the end of it.  
  
Instead, he made a point of greeting me whenever I encountered him at the library or on the street, and making vaguely threatening remarks. To be honest, it was all incredibly childish, and I found it quite tiresome. Which is why, when I decided to retire, I deliberately didn’t mention it to him until I was about to leave the country, because I wasn’t willing to deal with whatever stupidity might ensue.  
  
Please extend my apologies to Jon, who I understand has had to deal with said stupidity in my place, and do let me know if there is any further assistance I can offer.  
  
Regards,  
Gertrude Robinson

  


“Wow,” Melanie said blankly. “Is writing incredibly formal emails a Local Studies Librarian thing? Jon does that too.”

Tim shrugged. “So does Elias, and he’s never been one. Has he?”

Jon shook his head, still looking at the email. “He hasn’t, he just has a reasonable appreciation for punctuation.”

Daisy sighed. “Well, it’s useful for context but it doesn’t establish any connection between Michael and Jon, here. I mean, we could try to press charges with what we’ve got, but that’s mostly a lot of hearsay. This guy knows what he’s doing and he’s been really careful to put together a layer of plausible deniability. Even that first visit, when he grabbed you, he made sure that there were no cameras and nothing that could conclusively prove he’d done it. Send us a copy anyway, Tim, but I still don’t have enough to arrest him.”

They did at least get a nice brunch out of it, so the morning wsnn’t a complete waste of time.

**Thursday 29th June**

Basira looked forbidding and rather intense when Melanie greeted her that morning, and when Melanie asked if she was alright, she held up a plastic sleeve. “Jon says this was on his desk when he got in this morning.”

It was another printed message, no identifying marks:

> It’s nice that you have friends, but you still spend so much time alone.

Melanie felt cold. “On his desk? That one?” She pointed at the one next to hers that Jon never used.

“No, up in the attic.” Basira slid the note into a folder. “I’ve had a word with Elias, he thinks Michael must have nicked one of the security lanyards we let the volunteers use.”

Melanie drummed her fingers on the desk. “They don’t work after hours, though, do they?”

Basira shook her head. “But I’ve had a look, and there are a couple of windows on the first floor where I think somebody could climb out, even if they couldn’t necessarily get in. Or maybe he’s just staying the night and letting himself out first thing in the morning.”

Melanie found her teeth were clenched tight and had to consciously relax her jaw. She blew out a breath. “Is there any way to prove it was him?”

“Like I said, I spoke to Elias. Our security system logs when and where cards are swiped, so he’s checking for anything that doesn’t add up. He said if he does find anything, then he can look through the security footage, and he’ll check last night’s too. The problem is, most of our cameras are aimed at the kind of things people might try to steal, and there aren’t any in the staff-only staircase, since you need a lanyard to get into it. Plus he was in and out of here for a couple of years when he volunteered, so he probably knows where they all are.”

“I hate this,” Melanie muttered. “Is Jon okay?”

“After he found the letter and I got Elias, the three of us checked the building and there’s nobody hiding in here.”

“Even the basement?” Melanie asked sharply.

Basira rolled her eyes. “_Yes_, what kind of amateur do you take me for?”

Melanie felt her face go hot. “Right, sorry. I’ve watched a lot of horror movies.”

Basira snorted. “Don’t worry, so have I. We checked the whole place top to bottom, and nobody went anywhere alone. So unless Gertrude was right about those secret passages, there’s no way Michael is in the building anywhere.”

“Oh god, don’t say that,” Melanie muttered. “I thought you said you’d watched horror movies?”

Basira rapped her knuckles sharply on the wood of her desk. “This isn’t a horror movie. He’s just a guy, there are no secret passages, and if he shows up anywhere on that security footage, we’ve got him.”

It took hours, and Tim swapped shifts with Sasha so that she could help, but at last Elias stepped into the staff room and said sharply, “Basira, we’ve got something!”

They all crowded into his office, and there on the screen was a slightly-blurry image of a man, tall and blonde, standing near Jon’s desk in the attic.

“Did he screw up?” Melanie asked, delighted.

Sasha see-sawed a hand. “He did an excellent job of staying out of the direct line of the cameras, and frankly we got lucky that the new set are still responding correctly. But what he forgot is that there’s a bloody huge pane of glass right across the room, so this is actually his reflection.”

“Look, I’ll take it. You managed to track the security tag?”

Elias nodded. “One of the volunteer IDs was used to enter the building at 7:30pm last night, and I’ve had a look through the logs,and that particular card has been having all sorts of impromptu adventures, swiping in late at night and not swiping out again.”

“Right, “ said Basira. “I think that’s enough. I’m calling Daisy and he’s damn well getting arrested, okay?”

Jon made a low, stunned sort of noise, and Melanie had to prop him up when he sagged against her. “Basira, you’re a miracle worker.”

He was in a bit of a daze for the rest of the day, and Basira pulled Melanie over around four. “Listen, I’ve just heard from Daisy that they haven’t been able to find him yet. Don’t let Jon go home on his own, alright? Preferably get him to go somewhere else, but at the very least, make sure he has some company.”

Melanie nodded, and thought seriously about Georgie, but she was pretty sure Jon still hadn’t told her about any of this. She texted Gerry instead, explaining what had happened, and he said he’d be happy to pick her and Jon up from the library and take them wherever.

Melanie sidled up to Jon, and said, “Celebratory movie marathon?”

He blinked at her. “What?”

She shrugged. “Official word is you’re not to be left on your own, just to be safe. So, I’m thinking Lord of the Rings. Gerry’s in if you are.”

“Oh, well.” Jon smiled at her. “I’d like that. But I really just want to go home.”

Melanie nodded. “Movie marathon at your place it is.”

The popcorn was half gone and the Fellowship were just reaching Fangorn Forest when somebody knocked on the door. 

Jon, who was squished in between Gerry and Melanie and had been slowly melting into an exhausted puddle, sighed and got up. 

“Expecting anyone?” Gerry asked.

“No,” Jon muttered, “but Mr Morrison across the hall sometimes comes home drunk and forgets which door is his.”

He padded around the corner, and they heard him opening the deadbolt and locks. “Hello, what can-“

The words cut off with a sharp, choked noise, there was a scuffle and the door slammed shut, and Melanie threw herself off the sofa and around the corner, distantly aware of Gerry doing the same behind her. 

It was only a few steps, and her brain took in the picture of Jon, staggering back away from Michael, hands clutched to his stomach and smeared red, the knife in Michael’s hands, and she lunged at Michael, mouth twisting into a snarl. 

She grabbed his arm, the one with the knife in it, digging her fingers into the tendons of his wrist until his hand spasmed open with a cry of pain, and the knife dropped to the floor. He tried to throw her off him, tried to follow the knife, but she pivoted, yanking him forward instead and slamming her forehead into his nose. 

She felt more than heard the wet crunch as his nose broke, and she shoved herself clear as he tried to grab her, kicked him in the side of the knee and danced backwards. 

He stumbled, and she took a breath, ducked down quickly and picked up the knife.

It was warm and sticky with Jon’s blood. She spared a moment to notice that Gerry was with Jon, pressing his hands over the wound, keeping him still and quiet, so she didn't have to worry about that, just make sure that she stayed between them and Michael. 

Michael was straightening up now, but he was clearly in pain and she didn’t think that leg was going to work right for a while. 

He sneered at her. “What do you think you’re doing, here? Playing the hero? I’ve got nothing against _you_, so why don’t you get out of my way so I don’t have to hurt you.”

She was also, she realised slowly, standing between him and the door. There wasn’t any other way out of Jon’s flat, and he probably knew that, if he’d known where Jon lived, if he’d come up here intending to murder him. He was even wearing gloves, despite the warm night, and a hooded sweatshirt to cover up his long blonde hair. 

“Or you could just stay over there until the police get here,” Gerry said quietly, from behind her.

Michael laughed. “Mmmm, no, I don’t think they’re coming. Nice building you have here, decent walls. I expect the neighbours will just think you’ve got the telly up too loud.”

“Good,” Melanie said quietly. 

Michael blinked, staring at her in bemusement. 

“Hey, Gerry, we’re friends, right?”

“Yes?”

“The kind of friends who’d back each other up in a homicide investigation?”

Without hesitation, he answered, “Yes.”

“Great.”

“Am I supposed to be intimidated?” Michael laughed at her. Standing there with Jon’s blood on his hands. Melanie let the rage flex all her muscles into readiness. The knife felt good in her hand, light and comfortable, and he was already injured.

When she didn’t respond to the taunt, Michael started to look a little less amused. Then Jon rasped out, “Melanie? Melanie, you don’t have to. We can just call the police.”

“Shut up Jon,” she said without turning. “People who’ve been stabbed don’t get a say.”

She kept her focus entirely on Michael, whose expression had gone from confident amusement to faint unease. 

“Melanie, please! I- I’m pretty sure three makes you a serial killer, do you really want that?”

Jon was good, she noted distantly. She could see that one land, the slight widening of Michael’s eyes, the way his weight shifted backwards as if he wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. She let her mouth stretch wider, something like a grin but with no humour in it. “Don’t be ridiculous, Jon. This is clearly self-defence. He attacked us.”

She shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet, swaying a little left and right, testing, and Michael abruptly raised his hands. “Listen, this has clearly been a terrible mistake. Perhaps you should call the police, after all. Nobody else needs to get hurt.”

Melanie tipped her head and looked at him. “Right. Gerry?”

“Got it.”

She didn’t look away from Michael even as she heard Gerry start speaking to the emergency operator behind her. Michael smiled at her. She sneered. “Sit down.”

He glanced around, confused.

“On the floor is fine. Right there.”

He sighed, as if she was doing him a great inconvenience, and then sat cross-legged on the floor.

Melanie stayed where she was, rocking a little on her toes, watching him, listening to the sirens get closer and stop right outside. She waited until someone pounded on the door shouting, “Police, open up!”

Then she backed up carefully, to where Gerry was kneeling beside Jon on the floor, and she yelled, “My friend's been stabbed, the guy that did it is in the corner. He had a knife but we got it away from him. I’m opening the door now.”

She dropped the knife onto the floor, and turned the handle, stepping away with her hands clearly visible when the police officer came in, gun out but pointed at the floor. 

“Right,” The man said sharply, taking in the knife on the floor, Michael with his bloody nose sitting on the floor across the room. “You, over there.” Then he stepped to the side, letting a woman in uniform and two paramedics in. They took over from Gerry, asking him how long ago it had been, checking that Jon was conscious and responsive.

Michael said clearly, “I’m very glad you’re here, officer. I have no idea what’s going on. I got a phone call from Mr Sims asking me to come to his house about some documents, and when I got here he was bleeding on the floor and this woman attacked me.”

The two police officers glanced from him, looking injured and innocuous, to Melanie, who had blood all over her hands and probably on her face from Michael’s nose. 

“What the actual fuck?” Gerry demanded. “Are you seriously going to try this?”

Michael continued to look bewildered. Melanie ground her teeth.

Jon snapped, “It’s Thursday. I’m not concussed, and before I go anywhere it’s very important that you know that Michael Shelley, the blonde man over there, stabbed me. Not Melanie or Gerry, who are my very good friends and have just saved my life. And Michael probably did it because I’m trying to have him charged for stalking and harassment. Which he has been doing for months now.”

The police officer sighed. “Well, we’re taking everyone who doesn’t currently need a hospital down to the station anyway, and we’ll sort it out there.”

He slurred out a, “Thank you,” and finally let the poor paramedic strap an oxygen mask over his face.

They did make Melanie ride in the back of a police car, but not with Michael. She sat with Gerry, who had gone sort of quiet and tense.

“He’ll be okay,” Melanie told him firmly. “I mean, if he was still conscious and arguing and that, it can’t have been too bad. And just so you know, Jon was bluffing, in there. I’ve never killed anybody.”

Gerry nodded, but he still didn’t say anything. Melanie frowned at him. He was rubbing at his hands, Jon’s blood flaking off them as it dried.

“Are you alright?”

His mouth spasmed into something that could have been described as a smile if you were feeling generous. “Fine. I’m not the one who got stabbed, am I?”

Melanie nudged their shoulders together. “No, because you’re not an idiot. You did stop him bleeding out, though, good job.”

He sighed. “Well, you stopped him getting stabbed more, so. Go team.”

They were silent for a moment, then he said slowly, “It’s just the blood, that’s all. The last time I had blood all over me was when I found my mum’s body. She killed herself, once they told her she had Huntington’s and there was nothing they could do. Very like her, really, doing whatever she wanted and damn everybody else. There was so much blood, though…” He took a shuddering breath. “Anyway. I’m fine.”

Melanie nudged him lightly. “And Jon’s alive.”

He nodded, slowly, and leaned against her a little more heavily. “And Jon’s alive.”

Once they got to the station, the officers separated Melanie and Gerry, but she got her phone call, which she used to call Georgie, who was Jon’s emergency contact, and tell her what had happened. She stayed on the line as long as possible, reassuring George that she was fine, that Jon was probably fine, he’d only been a little bit stabbed.

The rest of the night blurred into a long series of waiting in institutional rooms and corridors. There was the interview room at the police station, after she’d told them what happened. Then the back of Daisy’s police cruiser, after she was released. Her second trip in a police car with Gerry was just as tense and quiet as the first, the only difference being that Gerry’s hands were red with scrubbing and his nails were spotless. 

Then there was a hospital corridor, where Georgie hugged her until she couldn't breathe and told her she was an idiot and she wasn’t to go getting into bloody _knife fights_ with _lunatics_ and how Jon was never going to hear the end of this. Once Georgie had let go, Melanie introduced her to Gerry, who went unexpectedly shy and said he’d heard a lot about her from Jon. And then they sat in uncomfortable chairs for a while, waiting. 

Basira turned up after about half an hour, saying Daisy had called her, and that she’d come over to make sure they knew that Michael had officially been arrested and there was no way he was getting away with whatever bullshit story he’d been trying to come up with. And then Martin wandered in, and Basira admitted that she’d texted the others, so at least Melanie wasn’t surprised when Tim and Sasha turned up together a few minutes after him. 

When the doctor eventually showed up Melanie was dozing against Gerry’s shoulder with Georgie half in her lap, and the other library staff were in a similar pile. Everyone jolted upright, but the doctor was smiling, and she said Jon’s surgery had gone well, and he was going to be fine. 

They all shuffled quietly to a different hallway, and eventually a duty nurse rolled her eyes and let the whole mob of them into the room after Georgie swore blind that they were all her cousins and wouldn’t be any trouble.

And then there was Jon, looking small and vulnerable hooked up to a bunch of monitors in a hospital bed, but still breathing. After a moment, Georgie padded over closer and said, “Hi Jon. Are you awake?”

He stirred, blinked up at her groggily, then looked past her and his eyes widened. He rubbed at his eyes, looked over at the machines, and slurred, “What are you all doing here? It’s two am!”

Melanie hiccuped out a giggle, and didn’t even care that she was crying in public, since she was pretty sure she wasn’t the only one. Georgie‘s voice was thick as she groaned, “Oh, shut up, you idiot. They were worried about you.”


	7. Epilogue: Friday 14th July

Melanie was sitting at her desk, trying to focus on this idiot’s account of how he shouldn’t have to pay for the library book because it had been eaten by worms, when somebody cleared their throat behind her. 

She twitched slightly, and turned to find Elias smiling at her. “Evening, Melanie. How are you getting on?”

“Oh, fine, thanks. I mean, this one isn’t as weird as the ghost spiders, so he’s definitely not getting out of the fine. Something up?”

“Not at all, I just wanted to check in, see how you are. I hear you managed to talk Jon into taking advantage of our counselling service?”

She frowned. “Did Jon tell you that?”

“Yes. The service is completely confidential, but I mentioned it, and he said he already had an appointment. You really have been very good for him.”

“Thank you? I think.”

“Not at all, thank _you_. I thought you had great potential when I hired you, and I am delighted to have been proven correct.”

“I don’t think ‘making sure the Local Studies Librarian doesn’t get murdered or have a nervous breakdown’ was in my job description.”

“I believe there was something about supporting your colleagues and maintaining a safe workplace. And you have certainly gone above and beyond there! Do keep up the good work. The Magnus Collection is the heart of this library and Jon has been doing so well with it, I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to him.” 

Melanie stared at his politely-smiling face. “No, I suppose he’d be difficult to replace.”

Elias nodded gravely. “Quite. Well, he’ll be back at work on Monday. I was thinking perhaps a cake at morning tea, just something small to celebrate everyone coming back safely. How do you feel about red velvet?”

Melanie shrugged. “Red velvet sounds lovely, though you know Jon will hate it if you make a big deal about it.”

Elias’s smile tipped more in the direction of a smirk. “Yes. But I think it does him good to be reminded that people do actually care that he’s alive.”

Melanie blinked. “Huh. I suppose.” 

He bid her a good evening and headed back to his office, and Melanie stared after him uncertainly until her phone dinged, and she decided that that was enough worrying about paranormal goings-on for a bit. She answered Helen’s text quickly and packed up her desk, thinking cheerfully about the fact that she was getting picked up by her gorgeous date to go see a movie, and eat dinner, and maybe go back to Helen’s place, and...

She was smiling to herself as she headed out into the car park, and then someone cleared their throat loudly behind her.

She turned warily, and recognised the disreputable figure slouched against the door immediately. “Evening, Trevor.”

“Melanie.”

They eyed each other for a moment, then he said, “Wasn’t a vampire, was he? The guy tried to kill your mate Jon.”

“No. Just a human.”

Trevor cleared his throat noisily. “Well, maybe. There’s other things out there. Good they’ve got you around, then.”

He gave her a respectful nod, which Melanie returned bemusedly, and then he shuffled into the library. Melanie watched him go, eyebrows creeping up, then shook her head and turned back to the parking lot.

She could see Helen’s car, and she let all the Magnus weirdness go as she headed on over, feeling the smile pulling her mouth up into a grin as she leaned against Helen’s open window and purred, “Hey there, beautiful. Going my way?”

Helen’s delighted laugh warmed her right down to her toes as she darted around the car to get in.


End file.
